Pesto, Pesto, and more Pesto!

Some of you may have wondered where did we get the blog name "Stop and Smell the Basil." Well, when Shirlie and I were bouncing back and forth names we discussed our favorite herbs. Mine is basil. In fact, the reason mine is basil is because years ago I became addicted to pesto. I put it in everything! It is just such a great way to incorporate fresh herbs into all kinds of dishes.

Usually, I just make fresh pesto each week in the summer and then before the first frost of the fall I harvest all my basil to make pesto to freeze for use over the winter. However, then past week there was a deal at the farmer's market I just couldn't pass up... 3 bunches for $5. When I saw the sign I thought "oh sure, I'll pick up the bunches on my way out." When I was ready to leave the market I gave the vendor my $5, grabbed the first bunch of basil and was like "holly cow, this is the best deal of the day." The bunches of basil were enormous! This is what my three bunches looked like:



So, of course I drove home and promtly set out to make a ton of basil. Usually I just throw the ingredients together in the food processor and go. But this time I decided to write down the recipe to post here so it took me a little extra time to actually measure the ingredients.

At my house we put it in everything... spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, over pasta, salad dressings, various appitizers. In fact, tonight I made phyllo trianges with a combination of pesto, goat cheese, and roasted cherry tomatoes... Delish. I make lots of pesto during the summer and save it in little Dixie cups like this...



Pop the little cups in the freezer and once frozen put them in a big freezer bag. Then, you have delicious homemade pesto all year round. Luckily for me, this deal on basil happened the very week that I used up my last pesto cup from last summer's harvest... I think it was meant to be!




Pesto

4 cups packed basil, washed and spun dry
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 teas. salt
1/2 cup olive oil

1. Place basil, garlic, pine nuts and salt in food processor. Process for 15 seconds.
2. While the food processor is running, stream in the olive oil.
3. After you add on the oil, turn off machine and scape down sides.
4. Process for an additional 20 seconds.
5. Place in tupperware to keep in fridge, or put in dixie cups to freeze.

** Some people also freeze pesto in ice trays. That also works fine.. I just don't have ice trays so I use Dixie Cups.

** To use as a pasta sauce on pasta... 2 small dixie cups is enough for 1 pound of pasta. Combine with cooked pasta, toss in 2/3 cups grated parmesan cheese, and a ladle full of pasta cooking water. Add salt and pepper to taste.

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Corn and Tomato Salad with Honey-Lime Vinaigrette

Another great week at the farmer's market. Corn was in abundance and there was an array of tomato varieties to choose from. I came home with a bunch of beautiful orange tomatoes and a few Cherokee Purple ones. This year I am growing Cherokee Purples in my garden but they aren't ready yet. So, I decided to a buy a few to learn what I have to look forward too next week when mine have ripened.

This is a quick corn and tomato salad that highlights the best of summer. The picture is a little dark but is was almost dusk before I got around to making the salad. The tomatoes had this beautiful purplish hue (Eddie says the tomatoes actually look like raw tuna in the pictures) and were divine. I can't wait until mine ripen.

The leftovers were great the next day for lunch!


Corn and Tomato Salad
Serves 3

3 ears of corn
1 tomato, diced (preferably an heirloom variety)
2 tbs. chopped chives

1 1/2 teas. honey
1 tbs. olive oil
2 tbs. fresh lime juice

Salt and pepper to taste.

1. Bring a pot of water to boil.
2. Cook corn cobs in boiling water for 2 minutes. Remove and let cool.
3. Cut kernels of the cob.
4. Combine corn kernels, diced tomato and chives
5. Whisk together honey, olive oil, and lime juice. Pour over corn and tomato mixture.
6. Season with salt and pepper.

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Balsamic-Marinated Red Onions

Hello from Hilton Head! I am on vacation this week with my husband's family and in true "Erin style" I packed our car full of kitchen stuff to bring down here. That is the great thing about driving to a vacation destination... you can fill the car with all kinds of stuff that for some reason you need, but if you were flying you somehow wouldn't need it.

So, this week I loaded that car up with cake pans, my Kitchenaid mixer, bamboo steamer, spices, cookbooks and other random kitchen items that I deemed necessary. The night before we left Eddie said "sure, take whatever you want." Then, when he decided at 3:00 in morning on Saturday that he couldn't sleep anymore and we should go ahead and leave for the beach that I was crazy for bringing all this stuff. That's right... my husband got me up at 3:00 a.m. to drive to Hilton Head. Since I run a little slower at 3:00 a.m. he had to pack the car and then all of a sudden I was "packing everything but the kitchen sink." So, now my goal is to use every item I brought just to prove that they were necessary.

But I digress...

My first new recipe of the week is Balsamic-Marinated Red Onions. This came out of The Summer House Cookbook by Debra Ponzek and Geralyn Delaney Graham. We gilled up some steaks and fish for dinner last night and this was the perfect accompaniment. The balsamic viniger and orange juice marinade cuts the bite of the onions and the orange juice really shines through. Total prep time was about 5 minutes, I let them marinate for about 5 hours, then tossed them on the grill with the meat. Delish!

View recipe after the jump.



Balsamic-Marinated Red Onions
Adapted from The Summer House Cookbook by
Debra Ponzek and Geralyn Delaney Graham
Serves 4

2 red onions, cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbs. sugar
Grated zest of 1 orange
Juice of 1 orange
Salt and Pepper

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. (I used a flat pan so that the slices could lay flat.)

2. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

3. On a medium-hot grill, cook onions for 5 minutes on each side, or until they are tender but still hold their shape.

4. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

*** These could also be a great appitizer: Cut them up and serve on toasted bread with a little bit of goat cheese.

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Farmer's Market Succotash

It is a great time of year for local produce. At the farmer’s market this morning there was plenty of corn, fava beans, green beans, blueberries, cherries, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, and I started to see the first of summer eggplant, peppers and more tomatoes than last week. (Have I mentioned that I am a die-hard farmer’s market shopper?)

This is a veggie side dish that I love to make this time of year. It is so fresh and incorporates the best that summer has to offer. I usually serve it with grilled fish, but would be equally delicious with any grilled meat. In this recipe I use fresh fava beans, but later in the summer fresh lima or butter beans would make a great substitute.

Here are a few tips if you have never worked with fava beans and get them still in the pod. You must remove the fava’s from the pod like any other bean. However, the bean is also surrounded by a thick shell that should be removed before cooking. I just make a small slit in the shell with a paring knife and then pull it back. Inside will be the bean. Fava’s should be cooked first in boiling water for 3-4 minutes before being added to any dish.

Hope this makes an appearance at your dinner table!

Recipe after the jump.



Farmer’s Market Succotash

1 ½ tbs. olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
4 ears corns, kernel cut off. (Save the cob to make broth)
1 ½ cups fava beans, parboiled
½ cup diced red pepper
Salt and Pepper
¼ c. chopped basil

1. Heat oil in large skillet on medium heat.
2. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute.
3. Add corn kernals, fava beans and red pepper. Cook 5-6 minutes until corn is cooked.
4. Season with salt and pepper.
5. Toss in basil and serve.

Serves 4

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Fettuccine with Creamy Red Pepper-Feta Sauce

Ever have one of those days… You go to work, contemplate what to have for dinner. You finally figure it out, assure yourself that you have all the ingredients in the pantry and don’t worry about it again until its time to make dinner.

Well, that was me last week. I had taken cod out of the freezer for dinner. Went to work and decided I was going to make a Thai Cod in Coconut Curry Broth. It was a recipe I saw Ellie Krieger make on Food Network a few weeks ago with halibut. I just knew I had all the ingredients at home, even bought a big bunch of cilantro at Safeway over the weekend. So, I went home that night, went on a run, showered and moseyed on down to the kitchen around 7:00. Opened up the pantry door…… NO COCONUT MILK! I have no idea what I had used the last can in, but obviously I used it in something. So, now what I was going to make? Going to the store was just not an option.

Conveniently, I had also watched Ellie make a Roasted Red Pepper Pasta and I had all the ingredients. So, pan fry up the cod to serve along with the pasta and that was going to be dinner. Hopefully a good one.

Well, Ellie did not disappoint. The pasta was fast, easy, and delicious. If you have jarred roasted red peppers then the amount of cooking is minimal. Just have to boil the pasta and sauté the garlic, onions and peppers in a skillet. I didn’t have jarred peppers, but did have two fresh ones. So, I popped them under the broiler until they were blackened (about 8-10 minutes), removed the skinned and diced them up. There. Fresh roasted red peppers… even better than jarred. I tossed them in the skilled for a minute with the garlic and onions, and added a handful of cherry tomatoes that I wasn’t sure would last one more day. Dumped all of it in the food processor, added some vegetable stock and feta cheese and walla! Dinner.

This was super easy and really tasty. A great deviation from the normal pasta with tomato sauce. I served this with pan-fried cod and sauted spinach. This is sure to be a staple meal in this house.


Fettuccine with Creamy Red Pepper-Feta Sauce adapted from Ellie Krieger

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 to 3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 (16-ounce) jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken stock or vegetable stock
1 cup crumbled feta cheese or a 6-ounce block
1 pound whole-wheat fettuccine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

1. Heat the oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat.

2. Saute onion and garlic until soft, about 10 minutes. Add roasted peppers and cherry tomatoes, and saute until heated through. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

3. Place mixture in the bowl of a food processor with stock and all but 2 tablespoons of the feta. Process until combined and smooth, about 30 seconds.

4. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta water. Toss pasta with sauce, adding pasta water by the tablespoon, if needed. Sauce should cling nicely to pasta.

5. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

6. Divide among pasta bowls. Sprinkle with parsley and remaining feta cheese.

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Potatoes and Feta au Gratin

Potatoes and cheese. I mean really, can life get any better. There is just something about the humble potato cooked in a creamy cheesy sauce that screams comfort. Many people have a hard time making augratin potatoes from scratch and resort to that box stuff in the store. In fact, a friend of mine called me up the other day wondering what went wrong with hers. Somehow she ended up with a liquidy mess and despite being in the over for well over an hour, the potatoes weren’t cooked through.

I usually make the Julia Childs recipe from the Art of French Cooking with great success. The key to her recipe is to cut the potatoes very thinly, but not to wash them off before layering them. It is the starch in the potato that she relies on to thicken the milk while cooking. Then, the augratin is cooked for a long time in the oven, first covered to allow the potatoes to cook, then uncovered do the milk can thicken up and the top brown over.

When I saw a recipe for Potatoes and Feta au Gratin by Peter at Kalofagas I knew I just had to make it. I always buy have a big slab of Feta from Costco in the fridge. Usually I use about half of it, then it takes me months of contemplation of figuring out how to use the rest. As much as Eddie and I love feta, there are only two of us in the house and this is a lot of cheese to eat. So, this recipe was the perfect way to consume what I had in the fridge. The recipe itself is really simple. Peter calls for par boiling the potatoes first, then slicing and layering them in the casserole dish. This does two things: 1) reducing the total cooking time because the potatoes are half cooked before going in the oven; 2) requires you to make a béchamel sauce because the starch from the potato cannot be relied on to thicken the milk. I actually like this method. It is good for a work night when you don’t have 2 hours before dinner to put this together and get it in the oven. I was able to assemble this dish (including par boiling the potatoes) and get it into the oven in 20 minutes. Forty minutes later and it was ready.

I did adapt Peter’s recipe slightly and think it still turned out great. Since there was so much flavor in the cheese sauce I thought simplicity was better for the rest of the meal. Eddie grilled up some fish and fresh local asparagus I had picked up from the farmer’s market and we had one heck of a meal. I thought the salty sharpness from the Feta would be a prominent flavor, but it really wasn’t. The creamy béchamel sauce mellowed out its pungency. And, the incorporation of rosemary and olives really rounded out the dish. This was so good, that I ate it for breakfast the next day. And the next day.




Potatoes and Feta au Gratin, adapted from Kalofagas
(for 4)

4 large potatoes (I used 6 red-skinned potatoes)
3 tbs. unsalted butter
1 large onion, sliced
1 bay leaf
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
1/4 cup flour
2 cups of milk
1 sprig of rosemary, plus 2 teas. finely chopped
2 cups of crumbled feta
1/3 cup chopped greek olives (*see note)
salt and pepper to taste

Pre-heated 400F oven

1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Add a good amount of salt and potatoes and boil for 12-15 minutes. Drain. Bring the temperature of the potatoes down by placing in an ice bath until they are safe to handle.

2. Slice the potatoes into thin slices and reserve. I used red potatoes and there was no need to skin them.

While potatoes are cooking:
3. In a medium saucepan, add your butter over medium-high heat and then add your onions, garlic, bay leaf, half of your rosemary sprig and saute for 5 minutes until your onions have softened. (Just put the rosemary spring in whole, you will remove it later.)

4. Add your flour and stir to cook the flour for a couple of minutes. Add the milk over medium heat and stir until the Bechamel has thickened.

5. Remove your bay leaf, rosemary and garlic.

6. Add half (1 cup) of your crumbled feta. Stir until incorporated, adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Keep warm and reserve.

7. Grease an approx. 9" X 13" baking dish and line the bottom with a coat of Bechamel. (I actually used a smaller pan so that the end product was thicker.)

8. Divide sliced potatoes in half. Lay down one half of the sliced potatoes in rows, overlapping each other. Keeping making rows until you use up half the potatoes.

9. Spread about 1 cup of the Bechamel over the potatoes.

10. Lay down the other half of potatoes on top.

11. Spread the rest of the Bechamel over the potatoes, scatter the remaining crumbled feta on top, followed by the chopped olives and 2 teas. chopped rosemary.
Crack some fresh black pepper over the top and bake in the middle rack of your oven for 30-40 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Note: I had a jar of chopped olive bruscetta from Trader Joe’s in my fridge and used this instead. Key here is to use really good olives. No canned black or green olives in water. Spring for the good olives packed in oil. It will make a huge difference in the flavor.

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Spinach and Cauliflower Gratin

My husband doesn’t eat meat. Seafood, but no meat. Since most one pot meals are then off the table, I am always looking for new ways of getting veggies to the table. A friend at work came into my office recently and told me about a fabulous gratin she had the night before at a dinner party. As far as I’m concerned, anything with cream on top gets an extra 5 points in my book. So, did some investigating and found this Spinach and Cauliflower Gratin in Julia Childs The Way to Cook. The steps in the recipe spanned at least three pages, so I was thinking this would take forever to prepare. But really, there are four simple steps and by tweaking the recipe you can have it put together and into the oven in less than 20 minutes. That’s my type of cooking. When the gratin came out of the oven bubbling with creamy goodness, I knew this was a winner. It was absolutly delicious. Even my husband said he would like to see this come across the dinner table again. It was so good that I ate it for breakfast and lunch the next day.

The recipe feeds 4-6. Can definitely be made ahead of time, even the day before, just adjust the cooking time if the gratin goes into the oven straight from the fridge.

Spinach and Cauliflower Gratin
1 head cauliflower

2 tbs. olive oil
5 cups chopped spinach.
½ c. chopped shallots (or white onion)
Salt/pepper
Ground nutmeg

2 ½ tbs. unsalted butter
3 ½ tbs. flour
2 cups hot milk
Salt and pepper
¾ cup grated swiss or gruyere cheese

1. Cut cauliflower head into smallish florets. Steam in a bamboo basket or steamer for 3-5 minutes. Do not overcook! Remember the cauliflower will continue to cook in the oven. Set aside
2. Melt olive oil in medium skillet. Sauté onion till translucent (7-9 minutes). Toss in spinach and cook till spinach has wilted. Remove from heat. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. Set Aside.
3. Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour. Cook for 2-3 minutes while continuously stirring. Pour in ½ c. hot milk. Whisk vigorously to make get rid of any lumps. Pour in remaining milk and bring mixture to a simmer. Let simmer for 1 minute. Remove from heat, stir in cheese. Season with salt and pepper.
4. In a 6 x 8 baking pan, combine spinach mixture and 3 tbs. of cheese sauce. Stir together and smooth into an even layer on bottom on pan. Arrange cauliflower on top of spinach. Pour remaining cheese sauce on top.
Bake 15 to 20 minutes in a 425 degree oven. Remove when cheese sauce is bubbly and top has lightly browned.
Enjoy!

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