Mediterranean Chicken Green Salad

Remember the chicken kebabs and the mediterranean seasoning I like to use? I used the leftovers in a cold green salad. I made my own dressing with a little fat-free sour cream, skim milk (or buttermilk would be nice), a teaspoon of tahini paste, a squeeze of lime juice, greek seasoning (or just oregano and mint), and a sprinkle of sugar. I put bell peppers (non-green, of course), scallions and feta in the salad. It was nummers.

Tiramisu

PHOO! I've been gone a long time. October was particularly busy, with all-weekend anesthesia courses to complete (on my other blog, I may post pics of me getting, and giving, nine injections in the oral cavity on a Sunday night. Nothing like it.) Now that I've primed your appetite, let me tell ya, I'm still taking pictures!

I had never heard of tiramisu, probably, until I began dating my husband. In my family, we rarely ate Italian in restaurants. Aside from our favorite restaurant which used to on Wabash called Cafe Angelo in the Oxford House hotel (now the Hotel Monaco), *** an order of tomato gravy that invariably came with green peppers in a sauce that was gorily undercooked to a bright red would leave us disgusted and seeking Chinese cuisine the next time out. But Chris' family? Oh, they love to eat in restaurants. And my mother-in-law, who moved here from Italy at eight years old, always selects Italian or "just regular American." And they always pay, so who am I to argue? Chris and I pretty much leave the experimentation in exotic cuisines to our own time.

Anyway, something that always seems to be on the menu in any Italian restaurant (especially the nicer class of them that my in-laws favor that by the way, can also competently cook a white or a red sauce) is tiramisu. It also frequents the Food Network. It looked so easy that a couple of years ago I tried Giada's recipe.

I made a few alterations that I think made all the difference. First of all, authentic or not, I can't make anything with rum in it. Let's just say that a few experiences in my twenties left rum on my "never drink again" list. So I substituted with amaretto liquor. While tasting the marscarpone mixture, I also doubled the sugar (still just 6 tablespoons total), and added a capful of vanilla extract. I've used fresh bakery ladyfingers, but the shrink-wrapped kind from the Italian grocer actually seem to work better. I have an unsweetened cocoa and chocolate mixture that my brother got me some time ago from Ghirardelli, and I dust that between layers and on top. Lastly, I don't usually have espresso on hand, so I substitute with strong coffee, preferrably the stuff that has been evaporating/condensing in the pot since morning.



Chocolate chunks on top of this one, I know, totally unnecessary, but I didn't have block chocolate, and I was too lazy to shave each individual hunk. Now ask me if I regret it. NO.



The Witt family seems to like it. For the Christmas holiday shown above, my MIL had gotten some wonderfully fresh torrone -- the best I've ever tasted. She also had the panettone. My bro brought the amaretti cookies. It was a real meeting of the minds. Stomachs.

*** Cafe Angelo is STILL my favorite Italian restaurant. I read some time ago that the former owner opened another restaurant in the suburbs... and then I lost the name. They have a dance floor and they play Sinatra tunes. If anyone out there knows, let me know!

UPDATE: Holy crud, I'm getting good at answering my own questions. Angelo Nicelli now owns the Porto Bello Italian Steakhouse in suburban Lake Zurich. We'll be checking that out soon (and taking pictures, of course.)

UPDATE on the UPDATE: Sadly, it appears that Porto Bello is no longer open. Nuts.

Italian Roasted Veggies

My father used to buy finocchio, or fennel. He said it like "finoy-kya," which is how everyone on the Sicilian side of my family says it. However you wanna say it, I never wanted to go near it. I thought it was the foulest, funkiest vegetable that God had ever seen fit to drunkenly turn his back and create while blindfolded. An aberration, that's what it was. Sure, I would find the occasional fennel-flavored pastry or cookie acceptable. But the way that my father would brazenly crunch into a whole rib of the raw vegetable, clad in his wife-beater t-shirt and black socks, while on the sofa in front of the tube was not acceptable. For several reasons, really.

Anyway, last year I saw Michael Chiarello making some lovely roasted chickens with fall vegetables, including fennel. He said that fennel caramelized in the oven, and even if you don't like the stuff raw, that he still recommended you try it this way. So I did.



I chop up various veggies: Yukon gold potatoes, fennel, garlic, carrots (okay, as you can see I buy peeled baby carrots so there is no chopping there), sometimes onions, and celery if I have that on hand. Just drizzle olive oil over them, and season them with Nonno's seasoning (sage, rosemary, red pepper and yes, more garlic), salt and pepper, and stir. I roast them for about an hour at 375 degrees. After roasting, I add toasted pignolis (pine nuts).

The resulting veggies are sweet and aromatic, and do not at all induce the dragon-breath that I associate with raw fennel. I like to have them with a dollop of fat-free sour cream, because well, you know me and my condiments. (My brother and I, even after years of viewing this, went straight out and lived the opposite lifestyle.) I recommend using the base, or bulb part of the fennel instead of the thinner stalks. They tend to stay sort of fibrous, even after roasting. I'd also recommend chopping into one-inch pieces so that they cook through and get all melty. At some point, I think I will actually roast a chicken atop these, but for now I'm just enjoying them as a side to whatever meat I have on hand.

Happy roasting!

Home Sliders and Jenny's Shower

In August, my fellow "townie" and friend Jenny had her bridal shower at Dave and Buster's. I thought it was a great place for a shower, and we had so much fun. Any place where you can be served alcohol and play video games is a great place for a shower, if you ask me. We had a Kane County Cougar's game to attend that night, so we didn't actually have time to play the video games -- but we definitely partook of the alcohol. The food was fun and super-tasty. They served chicken fingers (very crunchy and tender inside), nachos, veggies and dip, mini-pizzas, and one of my favorites: sliders!



I've had a soft-spot for sliders, since I grew up near a pee-wee golf establishment that sold the little suckers (sadly, no longer in existence), and often we would run over to pick up a sack of burgers (and skip the golf). These at the D & B were so good, I made quite the pig of myself. They were far above the quality of your standard White Castle (not that there's anything wrong with that, if you're drunk anyway. Or hung-over). Nooo, these were special. The memory of them stayed with me, until a few weeks later I was forced to try to re-create the moment. I remembered my friend Katherine serving sliders at a pre-drink party a couple of years ago. She had mixed ground beef with onion soup mix, and a little Worcheshire and seasonings. Then she spread the meat out flat in the bottom of a sheet pan, baked it, and then cut them into small squares with a pizza-cutter. Judging from the look she was giving me, I was apparently the last person on earth to hear of this (which would be nothing new.) I had happened to find some Hawaiian bread rolls that were perfect for the occasion. I revived the recipe, and used turkey meat, as is my wont.



They were quite delicious. My largest sheet pan happened to be dirty, and as a rule I won't wash dishes by hand unless I absolutely have to. So mine came out a bit thicker, having used the smaller pan. I would also add that although I am always trying to kill fewer cows, as well as reduce our fatty intake and cholesterol, I think next time I will make these with lean beef. Still, they were very tasty and a lot of fun!!

P.S. I remember the two figures at the Pee Wee Golf that used to stand on Larry Power Road in Kankakee quite well... On one course, there was a Big-Boy-like male figure with a platter of sliders. On the other course, there was a girl with a similar platter and a flip hairdo. I remember them languishing sadly for a long while after the course closed, the victims of vandalization and degradation over time. Now I wish I had gotten a pickup truck and stolen them both. I wonder, does anyone have a photo of one of these two? I'd love to have a copy...

UPDATE (a la "Unsolved Mysteries"): The figures still stand on a miniature golf course on Larry Power road. They are now a part of Aspen Ridge Golf Course! (Sorry about the night pic, but you can see me next to the statue for a size reference.)

Halva

I was at Joe Caputo's grocery the other day, waiting at the always-spectacular but crowded deli counter. We were in a hurry to get to a friend's house. I picked up something that I thought was torrone, encased in plastic wrap as though it had been freshly made. Chris gave me the look that he gives me when he is annoyed that I have decided to experience something new when we are in a hurry to get somewhere. The parcel read, "halva," which I'd never had. Or heard of, for that matter. But I figured, "Well... it has something marshmallowy in it, and pistachios (which is, delightfully, the junk-food of nuts), so how could it be bad?" I tried to pull off a hunk just as we pulled up to our friend Cameron and Lindsay's house. I expected it to be chewy, like torrone, but instead it crumbled all over me and the car seat. Chris gave me the look that he gives me when he feels that I deserve to be covered in crumbs for getting distracted by food when he is in a hurry, and for being such a pig that I will open the package to eat it in the car before we get there.



It is a bit strange at first -- like the first time you have tahini all by itself (which, it turns out, is in this) -- but I really like it. Chris doesn't. I think it has a sweet, roasted nut flavor, and I like the texture. I like that it isn't overly sweet, but just enough. I also like that you can keep it wrapped on your countertop for an apparently long period of time, while you slowly chip away at it, unmolested by your sweets-mongering husband.

Eggplant Risotto

Risotto (arborio rice) is another Italian dish that I have no qualms in saying that I did not grow up eating. For one thing, the differences in Italian cooking vary widely not just region-to-region, but also from kitchen-to-kitchen that you can easily spend a lifetime exploring all of the possibilities. No single Italian grows up with every Italian dish. It is also important to note that my greatest influence in cooking was my father -- who was not just an Italian, but a long-term bachelor before (and after) his marriage. He was a great, and passionate cook, but he was also Mr. Mom. While he aspired to the delicate and complex cooking of Julia Child, his own cooking was often centered mostly around cuts of various meats, frying things, coldcuts, and (with the exception of his tomato-gravy, and corned beef on St. Patrick's Day) those things which could be made quickly and easily: utilizing only a 24-year-old spatula, and a skillet that looked as though it had shielded him throughout a war and several hostage crises. His cooking was born of his ethnicity, his necessity, and his resources. And consistently, it was damn good. I see these things with a clearer eye now.

(As a side note, when David and I moved out of the old house, we could not wait to chuck the crummy old cooking supplies and buy new ones. Now, when I think of the history the old man's skillet had, I wouldn't focus on its long lack of a non-stick surface: I would mount it on my kitchen wall as an historical artifact.)

Still, my tastes (and my husband's) run just a bit more to the veggie side now and again. My inexperience with the medium of risotto, however, made me rather timid about trying it out. But over the years, She Whom I Love to Taunt (but actually rely on, and worship somewhat) has emphasized the ease of making risotto so many times that I actually started to believe it. And Rachael? "Easy-peasy" it is.

I started the rice with onion and mushroom. Then I began to add the chicken stock according to the package directions. While I slow-cooked the risotto, I grilled eggplant on the side. It was very simple to continue adding chicken broth as the risotto cooked, thickened, cooked, thickened... Lather, rinse, repeat. I added fresh basil at the end, and served it with some ovoline (buffalo mozzarella the size of eggs) that I got at my new favorite grocery store. Just because it was there.

Chris has not yet completely developed an appreciation for eggplant, but I will continue to make it because I love it so much. I will temper it, for his sake, with the occasional serving of coldcuts and corned beef. I know what boys like.

Check it Out!

Gotta give a mention to my buddy Kira's new food blog... I loooove the title, and I sure as hell love that cookin'!

Kira's Food Blog

Everybody food blog!

Aaaaaand... go.