CEIMB: Linguini with Shrimp & Vegetables

Pasta is the love of my foodie life. If I am looking for comfort, I always go with pasta. It is probably the thing I crave most, and we eat pasta for dinner at least once a week.

So I was happy to make this week’s Craving Ellie pick, chosen by Farah of Confessions of a Novice Baker, Linguini with Shrimp & Vegetables.

I have actually made this recipe before as written and with variations. I usually like to melt a few anchovies into the olive oil, add some fresh thyme, and I cook the tomatoes longer than Ellie calls for. This time though, I added some chanterelle mushrooms because we got them for a steal at Costco over the weekend, and I added some fresh capers that our friend Dianna brought us back from Italy. We are generally not caper people, but these were so briney and delicious. I think Dianna described them as a very capery caper. Thanks Dianna!

Yay for Chanterelle mushrooms!

Yum!

Here is my recipe as I made it this time. It was great! You end up with a really light but flavorful sauce bulked up with lots of yummy veggies and shrimp. And of course something like this is forever adaptable to what you like and what you have on hand.

Pasta with Shrimp & Vegetables
Adapted by Sara at imafoodblog.com from Ellie Krieger
The Food You Crave, page 160-161
Serves 4

• 1 pound spaghetti or linguini
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 8 ounces Chanterelle or any other mushroom
• 1 bunch asparagus stalks, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1 container cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 cup capers
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 cup freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Freshly grated Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to the directions on the box. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking water.
2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over a medium-high heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute.
3. Add the mushrooms and saute until all the water has cooked out and evaporated.
4. Add the asparagus and cherry tomatoes and saute until the tomatoes begin to break down.
5. Add the capers, lemon juice, white wine, and the reserved cup pasta water (as needed) to the skillet. Let simmer until the liquid is reduced by about half.
6. Add the shrimp and cook for 3-4 minutes, until they turn pink. Stir in the parsley and then add the pasta to the pan and mix. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Add a healthy dousing of Parm. cheese to each plate.

Cuban combination foods

Several of the less expensive eateries in Havana seem to offer combinations of items or courses with even better value. This was a combination dish of chicken, shrimps and pork, served with rice, green beans, and a token salad. It was pretty good, too, with a nice mixture of flavours used to bring out each of the three main ingredients.

A white wine would have gone better, but by then the red had arrived, a Vina Nazarino cabernet sauvignon, “La Pampilla,” ‘07 at 13.5 percent. In fact it seemed to go quite well with the pork and chicken, though not the shrimps.

Filipino Food I

Happy Feast of Stephen! (Of "Good King Wenceslas" fame...)

In the past couple of days I've been enjoying a cornucopia of culinary delights that I don't often get in the U.S. My thighs feel like blobs and my panniculus has doubled, and yesterday after Christmas lunch I was sure that my lower lungs were in a state of collapse from all the food piled up in my stomach squashing all the air out of my alveoli. We really need to get better Filipino food in the Boston area.

I'm sometimes asked what Filipino food is like, and I find it's a little difficult to describe well. Like the people, it's a mix of Asian and Spanish influences. Just before this trip I made arroz a la cubana, a dish of ground meat, tomatoes, and raisins, with a hint of soy sauce in the seasoning, topped with fried eggs and plantains. Yesterday and today I feasted on delicious calamares en su tinta - squid in its ink - made by my mom's best friend, a Caucasian Filipina whose family is of Basque origin. We have paella here (shown above), but we also have those Asian see-through noodles and our own versions of the spring roll, fried or fresh, which we call lumpia (shown above and below). Then there's adobo, our signature dish made of chicken or pork marinated in vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic, and bagoong, our deliciously stinky condiment about which I've written before - how to explain that? I've munched on green mangoes and bagoong here like a pregnant woman with cravings - but no, I'm not pregnant, so I don't even have an excuse for the cravings.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that ripe, golden Philippine mangoes are without equal in the world - sweet, succulent, with the consistency of custard rather than being stringy as the fruit is scooped out with a spoon, with no adulteration by that apple-like taste some other mangoes have. Hard to find mangoes like these in New England. I know, I sound like a mango elitist. But it's impossible not to be here.

Something most people find unusual is our purple yam, called ube. It is bright purple both raw and cooked, and as an ice cream looks as yummy as it tastes. Tonight I tried something new to me in world of ice cream: cheddar cheese ice cream. There was also a white sorbet laced with our citrus fruit, the calamansi, which produces a juice and flavor unlike that of any Western citrus fruit. I liked the purple ice cream best.

And speaking of white...while we were at the grocery this afternoon buying the ice cream, I had to take a picture of these signs for aisle 9, just in case people who read my post mentioning skin-whitening products thought I might have been exaggerating:

I could start ranting about the sociopolitical objections these products stir up in me...but I'm too stuffed from dinner and sleepy from jetlag to think lucidly (it's morning in the U.S., but dinner time here in the Philippines). So perhaps another day.

Karepaak Pood (Curry Leaves Powder)

The modest curry leaf is omnipresent in almost any regional cuisine of India. It is typically used in seasoning - tossed in hot oil, either in the very beginning or the very end, so it can emanate its slightly bitter, slightly nutty flavor and complete the dish. Today's recipe is for a condiment featuring this aromatic green. In this dish, curry leaves which are usually humble, backstage helpers take centerstage as the star and are suitably complemented with appropriate spices. Curry leaves help in digestion and also promote healthy hair growth. Those who don't have everyday access to fresh curry leaves need not be deprived of these and more health benefits. This powder can be made in bulk in advance and used regularly.

All through my childhood, karepaak pood (curry leaves powder) was a sure presence in my mother's pantry. I realized its health significance postpartum. Now, it plays a vital role in my toddler's meals. Sprinkle any new dish with karepaak pood, and he is more than willing to try it!

Makes 2 cups
Preparation time: 30 minutes

4 cups fresh curry leaves
1 tblsp dania (coriander seeds)
2 tsp jeera
6-8 black peppercorn - adjust according to spiciniess
2-3 red chilis - if you want it spicy.
1/2 tsp ajwain/omam (optional)
salt to taste

.Wash the curry leaves thoroughly. If they are in their stalks, pluck out the leaves and dry them on a dish towel, till there is no moisture.
.Warm a wide, deep skillet on the stove and toast each ingredient separately, on medium low heat, without adding any oil. The curry leaves should have no moisture in them when you begin. When you finish, they should wilt and become crunchy. In India this is done by sunning it for 2-3 days, after that they blacken and crumble easily. To duplicate the same in colder climates, we toast it well. The spices should be toasted till their aroma is released.
.Allow them to cool and dry grind them all together, with salt, to a very fine powder.
.That's it! Store in air tight container. Don't let any moisture in. Will keep for several months.

Last Bite: There are a hundred different ways to eat this powder - sprinkle it in sabjis while cooking, a side to idli/dosa, mix with yogurt (my toddler's favorite), or mix with hot rice and ghee (my favorite!). For pregnant and postpartum ladies, the last method is recommended to be eaten as a first course. For each method, you only need a tsp or so, as the flavor will be strong. Note: curry - the word used to indicate Indian spice mix - does not come from curry leaves!

Updated with a tip: To store fresh curry leaves for a long time, don't wash them, but strip them off their stalks and store as individual leaves in an airtight container in the refrigerator. I put them in the Amul ghee tin and use one or two everyday for the usual seasoning. It stays fresh - not a single black spot - for over a month. Of course, don't let any moisture in!

Filipino Food II: Merienda (or, Pinoy Pood dat I mees)

"Hey, I remember that smell," my son commented at the airport. I interpreted his comment to mean that aromatic medley of pandan leaves, fried dough, bamboo, and jasmine that I associate with being in the Philippines. It's an aroma that leaves a pleasant taste in your mouth and makes you hungry, so I said without thinking, "How very Proustian of you," though in fact it was I who was being transported to the past.

My Filipino sensory memories are centered around food. Filipinos love to eat and eat as much as possible. To leave food out of any kind of occasion, large or small, is unthinkable. We are all foodies, and we are obsessed.

Let me explain about meriyenda, from the Spanish merienda, "la comida que se toma antes de la cena."

Filipinos can eat up to four or five meals a day. Breakfast (almusal), morning merienda (kind of like the hobbits' second breakfast), lunch (tanghalian), merienda, and dinner (hapunan).

Merienda is no mere afternoon tea or pre-dinner snack. Merienda - the word itself is delicious to say - is a meal that celebrates the pleasure of eating, a time when the rest of life stops and the savoring of yummy treats takes priority - including treats that one might have enjoyed at breakfast earlier in the day. Merienda can be as simple as a piece of buttered pan de sal with hot chocolate (made from dark cocoa tablets from Spain, of course), or it can be a huge buffet of appetizers, main courses (like kaldereta, or goat stew), snacks, and sweets, blurring the lines between merienda and early dinner, in fact morphing into "merienda-cena."

Let me start there, with pan de sal. Historically I think pan de sal was a lean bread, like the French baguette, with the simplest of ingredients - flour, water, yeast, and salt. Over time it became richer, with the addition of sugar and eggs. The current version is the most delicious bread I know - soft and doughy on the inside, my favorite part, with lots of little places for melted butter to seep into, and crusty on the outside with a tasty dusting of dry breadcrumbs that is its signature feature. The dough is rolled into a log, then cut, coated with dry breadcrumbs, and baked, so the final shape of each roll of pan de sal is round or slightly elliptical.

Then there's the queen of breakfast breads in the Philippines: the ensaymada. We took what Spain originated and made it 100 times better. Ensaymada is a bright yellow or golden brioche type of bread, soft and airy, topped with a melt-in-your-mouth mixture of finely grated cheese, sugar, and butter. This is the kind of thing whose last bite instills a little melancholy, because you know you can only savor the tastes and textures a moment longer, then the magic is over. My Tita (aunt) M, who is of Pampanga stock - and this is a Pampanga delicacy - makes THE BEST ensaymadas IN THE WORLD. Lots of people make this wondrous bread from scratch, and we've tried their versions, and they're good, even superbly yummy, but still no match for Tita M's, and once you've tried hers, you can't eat any other version and enjoy it as much. Hers are simply a culinary treasure. The 5 dozen she sent to our house on Christmas Eve are GONE. When my 7-year-old son got on the phone to ask her for more, and she asked how many she should make, he answered, "Hmm...maybe, a hundred?" She laughed her head off but said ok.


I could go on about other foods I miss when we're back in the States. Champorado, a chocolate rice porridge. Our version of chorizo, the sweet, garlicky longganisa, served with rice and eggs (above, middle). Green mangoes and bagoong, of course (above, top), and ripe mangoes which I've already waxed rhapsodic about before. Rice-flour sweets such as sticky, brown-sugar infused bibingka (above, left), the coconut-covered palitaw, and the tricolor sapin-sapin (above, right). Cylindrical wafers called barquillos. Savory treats like pancit palabok (above, middle), a noodle dish served on a large bilao, or woven basket tray, and salsa monja, an olive-and-shallot relish unknown outside the Philippines, it seems, but apparently served by Spanish nuns to Spanish friars back in the day, as a condiment to flavor their food. Yum! We also inherited merienda items from China: siomai (shrimp dumplings), siopao (steamed pork buns, below), and hopia (bean paste filled pastries, also below).

And I have to drool over two last favorites, the soothing taste and smooth textures of buko pandan (below), and our native masterpiece dessert, the cake known as Sans Rival. Tiers of almond or cashew merengue layered with a sweet, rum-tinged buttercream and covered with toasted almonds:

There are better pictures on flickrhere, here, and here. I know I'm going to have to undergo a massive detox when I leave, but for now, I'm taking pleasure in every dish and savoring every bite of merienda, enjoying with those bites the very Proustian flashbacks to my happy childhood.

Tuesdays with Dorie—Granola Grabbers

A healthy cookie that tastes good. I thought this would be impossible, but Dorie comes through again. I even had to stop my health-nut Dad from grabbing the cookie dough before it was even baked! He was excited to have something healthy to eat instead of all the chocolate desserts and pies I’ve been making lately.

To make them a little more fun, I baked them in the bottom part of an ice cream cone and topped them with a dollop of ice cream and sprinkles.

We were enjoying these outside on the front porch and the local squirrel must have smelled the peanuts and came within an arm’s reach hoping for his own cookie, I imagine!

Recipe


You can find the recipe for Granola Grabbers in thebook Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or here. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! Thanks to Michelle of Bad Girl Baking who chose the recipe for this week.

Tips for baking these cookies in ice cream cones: Push the dough right to the bottom of the cone so that there’s a bit of cookie in each bite. Bake them an extra 5-8 minutes in the cones so that the middle gets done.

Tasting Notes
These cookies were crunchy, chewy, and full of delicious surprises. I loved the combination of salty peanuts, raisins, coconut, almonds and granola. It makes them seem almost good enough to eat for breakfast! My kids were wishing I’d added chocolate chips, so I may try that next time, but I liked them as is.

Recipe for Next Week (August 26)
Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte on pages 288-289 chosen by Amyof Food, Family and Fun.

Freegans, Food Waste, Trash Tours, and Hope for Peace

Catching up on dumpster-diving news this weekend, I read this piece about "freegans" in the LATimes, Sept. 11. It's about New Yorkers who hit the best supermarket dumpster areas right after the garbage is put out--out back of D'Agostino's or Whole Foods they apparently find some real gems, enough to create lovely meals, stock the freezer and so on.

It seems to me the prime drawback other than possible intestinal distress and the odd rat turd, is that you cannot plan a meal. It's like shopping for clothes at Goodwill--you may go there hoping for a short black blazer but end up instead with a t-shirt from the Hard Rock Cafe in Prague.

But I digress---the freegan mission is explained this way atfreegan.info:

"Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able. "

Or, as former Barnes & Noble bigwig Madeline Nelson puts it in the LA Times piece,

""We're doing something that is really socially unacceptable," Nelson said. "Not everyone is going to do it, but we hope it leads people to push their own limits and quit spending."

So now we have "eating locally," the Joan Gussow, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollan, etc etc etc concept, we have No Impact Man, a New Yorker seeking ways to live off the grid, without plastic, t.paper, et al, and the family that stopped buying anything from China for an entire year--A Year Without "Made in China,": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy, AND the freegans, who are truly pushing the envelope of how to get one's food.

New York City throws away 50 million pounds of food a year--of that about 20 million pounds go to charitable groups. Much more about massive edibles tossed away is chronicled at Jonathan Bloom's blog,

To delve further into the freegan world you can follow up on these tips from the LATimes article.

"In recent years, Internet sites like Meetup.com have posted announcements for trash tours in Seattle, Houston and Los Angeles and throughout England. Some teach people how to dumpster-dive for food, increasing the movement's popularity. At least 14,000 have taken the trash tour for groceries over the last two years in New York. Another site,Freegankitchen.com, offers lessons for cooking meals from food found in dumpsters, such as spaghetti squash salad."

The late John Niederhauser, PhD, our friend and founding board member of The Potato Museum, said in his acceptance speech for the World Food Prize that feeding the world's people was the most critical challenge facing those who want peace in the world.

Younger persons around the world seem to be staking out eco-appropriate positions, pursuing "off the grid" projects--(I hope they are not all just out to write catchy, trendy books...) but where are the peaceniks? OR-- Is this the 21st century path to peace?

Summer food

This is really a spring picture. Nothing says spring in New Jersey like soft cell crabs. I got this one live at Sun Farm Market (900 Easton Ave. Somerset NJ) back in May. I used to drive all the way down the shore to get ‘em. This little Asian market has a good fish market and a good variety of produce.

It’s not summer without funnel cake. At the Custer St. Fair in Evanston Il.

Summer is also for grilling and smoking. Here’s some smoked ribs and a smoked pork shoulder(and some red peppers). The pork shoulder was brined over night and smoked for 5 hours, then grilled for a short time to crisp up the skin. The Weber Bullet (Smokey Mountain Cooker Smoker) has been producing great stuff. See the Virtual Weber Bullet site has lots of good tips and modifications.

Adirondack food and drink

I spent the week on Lake George, in the Adirondacks, so I got the chance to sample some local stuff. I always enjoy the beers from Saranac, including their aggressively hopped Pale Ale, and malty Adirondack Amber.


Another excellent local brew I found was Vermont’s Long Trail Blackbeary Wheat. This light wheat beer is one of the berry beers that have grown up in relation to the overly sweet and tart summer offerings that were very common years ago. Blackbeary is nicely balanced and fruity, without that harsh sweetness that accompanies many summer fruit fermented beers. I love their humorous labels.


I also had some very good coffee from Vermont – Green Mountain Coffee Roaster’s Harvard Blend. “A sophisticated blend of light and dark roasts.” Awesome stuff to wake up to, along with some clean mountain air.

I bought a bottle of Rich’s Game Sauce at Two Brothers Meat Market in Ticonderoga, and used it on a bbq’ed chicken and then for two different meals of pork loin ribs. This spicy sauce, made in Vermont is full of molasses and made a great marinade. The second rib meal was for around 13 adults, so I supplemented what was left of the sauce with some orange juice, lots of rosemary, and some ginger to marinate the ribs, which slow cooked on the grill for about an hour and a half. They achieved the proper ‘fall-off-the-bone’ tenderness that way.

One of the newest chocolatiers to enter the market is Filthy Food Company, a UK-based confectioner, that's playing up the sexiness of eating in sin.

The company has crafted some saucy little chocolate dessert bites to tempt and tease your palate in a new kind of way.

Filthy's new chocolate desserts takes burlesque glamour run amok, and packs it into a bite-sized piece of sweet decadence, intended to heighten your pleasure and senses. It's belgian chocolate encasements feature a melting sensation said to burst its payload into your mouth, oozing and dribbling down your throat.

Pictured here are the "Kinky Creme Brulee Bites", which combine "creamy" Madagascan vanilla with "sensuous" smooth brulee, inside a "hard" belgian chocolate shell.

Other varieties include their "Cheeky Chocolate Bites", "Seductive Strawberry Creme Bites", and "Captivating Caramel Bites".

However, Filth Food's sexually appealing chocolates are only available in the UK at this time, and only at Sainsbury's. Perhaps they'll offer online ordering soon.

Visit Filthy Food Company online at...

Banana Bread

Our wedding cake was made up of layers of chocolate and banana swirl – a Chunky Monkey cake, if you will. I am truly a sucker for the flavor of bananas which, despite being one of the most popular fruits in the world, seems to have a fairly under-appreciated flavor. When picking through the Runts, I would always eat the tiny bananas first, grab all the yellow Mojos and drink all the banana milk. I would, pardon the pun, go bananas for that taste.

Whenever grandma and I would go shopping when I was a kid, I would always try to convince her to buy the cheap, brown paper bags loaded with overripe bananas. “What would we make with them?” she’d ask. “Bread?” I’d reply, as if there were anything else you could possibly do with overripe bananas. To this day, I still like to keep overripe bananas in my freezer, to throw into a smoothie, milkshake, or to have on hand when a craving for banana bread resurfaces from my childhood.

When bananas have passed the stage welcome for snacking and cereal, they grow ideal for baking. Their flesh turns creamy as the starches break down and their flavor grows more pronounced, complex and acidic. At this stage, bananas help yield ideal components for leavening and flavoring a delicious loaf of banana bread. To further increase their flavor, and simply for convenience’s sake, I like to freeze the bananas and thaw them again when they are needed, easily slipping them out of their blackened skins and whirring them into the batter.

Since I find that baking a banana “loaf” ends up with the outside a little too dark by the time the inside sets, I like to make mine in an 8×8″ cake pan and then cut it into wedges instead of slices. Individually wrapped, they’ll keep for snacks throughout the week, and when they grow stale, become the perfect fodder for French toast.

Banana Bread

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 large bananas (very ripe, frozen and then thawed)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees with the rack positioned in the middle.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to fully incorporate into the mixture, then beat in the bananas and vanilla.
4. Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Mix this in to the wet ingredients until you can see no traces of flour.
5. Using a rubber spatula, transfer the batter to a greased 8×8″ cake pan with the bottom lined with parchment paper, and bake in the center of the oven until it has set and a toothpick can be inserted into the center and come out clean, about 30-35 minutes.
6. Allow to cool slightly, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely before storing.

Bananas share a common aromatic compound with cloves. The addition of a pinch of clove helps to heighten that banana flavor.

Creamy Latin Pasta Salad

One of my fave cookbooks to look through has been Ingrid Hoffman's "Simply Delicioso" - I've used it quite a bit this past summer. This pasta salad sounded so good, and so simple, I had to hunt down evaporated milk. Not an easy feat! Swedish stores now sell condensed milk, but that is sweetened and not what you need for this. I finally got lucky at an Asian supermarket, and scored a can of evaporated milk. (It's basically milk with half the water removed, so it's a much thicker milk.) Next time though.. I'll skip it. It wasn't all that great, and I think the dressing would be wonderful using crème frâiche instead - so feel free to try that.

The original recipe had celery, which I hate, red onions which I didn't eat this summer because of nursing, and ham which I just didn't want this time.

Creamy Latin Pasta Salad
(printable recipe)

400 g pasta shapes - I used fusili or rotelli
125 ml evaporated milk
50 ml olive oil
150 g feta cheese, crumbled
1 big bunch of fresh coriander, chopped
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
salt, pepper
1 orange bellpepper, finely diced
1 red bellpepper, finely diced
200 ml green peas (thawed if frozen)
150 ml green olives, de-stoned

Boil the pasta in plenty of salted water, and drain.

Mix the evaporated milk with feta cheese, olive oil, coriander and lime in a food processor and run until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

Mix the pasta with bellpeppers, peas and olives. Add the dressing and toss well.

Leave it for at least an hour before serving, so the flavors get a chance to marry.