March 2, 2012
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So today I was on the CTV Southwestern Ontario News at Noon to share my recipe for Pasta Puttanesca (which you’ll find below). Without further ado, click here for the link to the video clip.
March 1, 2012
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Pasta Puttanesca
This sauce is named for what one cookbook I read politely referred to as “women of the night.” Why? It’s cheap, quick and easy.
It’s a sauce with strong flavours, but it can easily be modified to your taste. For less salt cut back on the capers and for more heat increase the chili flakes.
You can also take your pick of olives and tomatoes.
I’ve always used sliced black olives, but Nicoise or Kalamata would be delicious too, just make sure there are no pits involved.
If you prefer a thicker sauce, use crushed tomatoes or buy whole plum tomatoes and give them a good squishing (it’s a great job for kids who want to help cook). For a lighter and fresher sauce, diced tomatoes work better.
There’s no salt added to the sauce and that’s not an oversight. The briny capers and salty anchovies give it more than enough sodium.
One final tip, to turn this into a meal, it’s easy to poach a thin cod fillet or egg in the sauce as it cooks. Or you can simply add a can of tuna, drained, when the sauce is just about ready.
Ingredients for Puttanesca Sauce, clockwise from top left: Olive oil, parsley, canned tomatoes, black olives, oregano, garlic, chili pepper, capers and anchovies.
Ingredients:
500 grams linguine or other pasta
2 tbsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced (about 2 tbsp)
8 anchovy fillets, coarsely chopped
2 cans diced/crushed plum tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp chili pepper flakes (to taste)
3 heaping tbsp capers, drained
1 cup sliced black olives (about one can)
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley, plus extra to garnish
Directions:
Fill large pot with water. Bring to a boil, add salt and stir in pasta. Cook according to package directions until al dente.
In a separate pan, heat olive oil on medium heat and add chopped garlic and anchovies. Sautee until garlic is golden.
Turn heat to high, add tomatoes and bring to a boil. Once at a full boil add the oregano, chili flakes, capers, black olives and parsley. Stir frequently.
Reduce the heat slightly and continue to simmer until the sauce has thickened to your liking.
Drain pasta when ready and combine with a few ladles of sauce. Plate pasta and top with more sauce. Garnish with additional chopped parsley.
Cook your Puttanesca Sauce longer for a thicker consistency.
Watch CTV Southwestern Ontario at noon on Friday, March 2 to watch me prepare the dish live! I’ll post a link to the video when it’s ready.
February 27, 2012
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Banana Bread Cookies
It seems to be that time of year where every couple of weeks there are two or three really sad-looking bananas left on the counter. I often peel, bag and freeze them for future use, but since I’d done that just a week ago, I decided I needed another solution for the ones left on the counter.
My husband and I both love banana bread, but I was itching for something a little different, something that didn’t need to be sliced and that wouldn’t leave crumbs everywhere. So I settled on a recipe from allrecipes.com for Banana Cake Cookies. The recipe even includes a frosting, but I had some ready-made cookie frosting on hand, so I used that. If you want the scratch-made frosting follow the link.
Now for some reason by the time I got around to taking the picture, after I had put the cookies in a Tupperware to keep them away from our doggie, the frosting started to melt off even though it was completely solid when I put the cookies in the container. They still tasted as good, but weren’t quite as pretty, sorry.
Maybe I’ll do something different in terms of the frosting, or just dust with icing sugar next time, which will be soon since there’s a couple more bananas that have already turned brown.
Here’s my version of the recipe, with very few modifications.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (about three ripe bananas)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a bowl, mix butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add eggs and banana and mix until well combined.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cloves then add to wet mixture and beat well.
Add pecans and stir until just combined. Place by heaping tablespoonful on parchment-lined baking sheets, about two inches apart.
Bake for 12 minutes and then cool on rack.
February 20, 2012
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Red Velvet Anniversary Cake
For most people, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to remind your sweetheart how much you love them. But in my family, it means it’s time for my parents’ wedding anniversary.
When they married, the day wasn’t chosen because it was the ‘day of love,’ but simply because that Saturday was available at the local church. It’s now been 42 year since that day and we try to celebrate every year.
This year, I decided to take on dessert duty, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.
I’ve had good luck before with Martha Stewart recipes for cupcakes, so I went for a Red Velvet Chocolate Cake and a Basic Buttercream recipe. (I’m still a little worried about trying the frosting that requires adding hot syrup to egg whites that was recommended for the cake’s frosting, but someday I’ll try it.)
I doubled the cake recipe for my two 10″ round pans, and the cake turned out nice and moist. I made about 1 1/3 the frosting recipe (because that’s how much butter I had) and it worked out, but next time I think I’ll double the recipe just in case.
I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to make the fondant cutouts and just glued them on with a little water. I then rolled pink and white ropes for the base, which are much harder to make an even size than I thought they would be, so if anybody has any tips please let me know.
And that’s it! Everybody seemed to love it, so I’d say it was a successful recipe. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!
January 25, 2012
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Paula Deen's The Deen Family Cookbook
So this is one of those tangents the name of the blog allows me to explore. I have to admit I’ve been ignoring the whole Paula Deen kerfuffle lately, but I decided to take a closer look, since the whole concept of the food celebrity is quite fascinating to me.
I you haven’t heard, here’s the story: Deen has known for three years she has Type 2 Diabetes, but recently decided to go public after securing an endorsement deal with a diabetes drug manufacturer.
The thing is, when I heard she got an endorsement deal, I thought well her name is her bread and butter (no pun intended), so it makes sense that she would find a way to turn a serious diagnosis into an income source.
However, knowing that she’s endorsing a drug instead of say, a more heart-healthy margarine or a line of grills or a brand of salad, is a disappointment.
I’m not the first person to point out that she has the potential to use her diagnosis for good. This article on Huffington Post and this one are ones that said it best for me.
And while I’m the first person to say she’s not responsible for the choices we at home make when it comes to food, it still somehow seems like the easy way out. (We’re each responsible for educating ourselves on healthy eating, by the way.)
Endorsing a drug means she doesn’t have to admit her eating habits have impacted her health, and the health of anyone who now thinks butter should be part of their daily diet.
That would be one hell of an admission too. Imagine learning that something you’ve been doing for decades, that is your entire living, your entire world, could eventually kill you. Not easy.
So I guess I hope she’ll eventually take responsibility. I hope she’ll learn from the experience. Most of all I hope she’ll do what other chefs/cooks have done and move toward healthier cooking or simply teaching that some dishes are only meant for rare special occasions.
And for everyone else, there’s nothing wrong with butter- and sugar-laden recipes on special occasions and at the holidays.
Someone smart quoted a great line to me…it’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year’s that’s important, it’s what you eat between New Year’s and Christmas.
What do you think? Do celebrities have a responsibility when it comes to choosing what they endorse?