Grandma's Kitchen Table

Thirty Minute Thursdays: Fettuccine alla Romana (Fettuccine Alfredo)

     This week for Thirty Minute Thursdays, cooking our way through Giuliano Hazan's Thirty Minute Pasta book with Glennis and Margaret and whoever else wants to join us, I made Fettuccine alla Romana (Fettuccine Alfredo), on page 44. 

      The ingredient list:  cream, butter, nutmeg, salt, pepper, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and dried fettuccine.

      I made a fourth of this recipe and it was plenty for two of us with some left over.  I have tried many many Alfredo recipes over the years and finally found one about ten years ago that we loved and have stuck with it ever since.  While this doesn't look like much of a post, I have to say, that this recipe is very very close to the one I have been making these past ten years so it was really nice to find it in this book as well. 

      This is just a simple, easy, and quick recipe to throw together for a side dish of a week night...that and a little of it goes a long way as it is rich in texture and taste.  Definitely a wonderful recipe.  

      If you like the looks and sounds of it, buy the book as I am a believer in encouraging people to support the authors who put together these fabulous books by buying a copy, so you won't find the recipes posted from this book here.  (Buy it, the recipes are easy, the ingredients are easy to locate, it's not pricey, and there are photos of almost all the recipes.)

Bake! Citrus-Scented Chocolate Tart

 

      The nineteenth recipe that I made from Bake!  by Nick Malgieri was Citrus-Scented Chocolate Tart, found on page 22, with a Cocoa Sweet Pastry Dough, found on page 14. 

      This was Marthe's pick for the group as her week fell on her birthday and this was her birthday choice.  I just love getting to make a birthday choice on someone's birthday!  Marthe lives in the Netherlands so it's not like we could all visit on her special day or anything like that, right? Baking her dessert choice with her was the next best thing.

      The ingredient list for the Cocoa Sweet Pastry Dough (page 14):  flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, eggs, butter, and cocoa powder. 

      The ingredient list for the Citrus-Scented Chocolate Tart (page 22):  cream, sugar, butter, semisweet chocolate, eggs, salt, grated lemon zest, grated orange zest, lemon juice, orange juice, orange liqueur, and vanilla. 

      The crust was easy to mix (used the food processor), chill, roll, and fit into a 6" tart pan (1/4 of the dough recipe works great).  I made 1/3 of the recipe for the filling and that fit perfectly into the 6" tart crust.
      Matt is off at college now, so it is just Mark eating the chocolate desserts here (and packing them into his lunches).  He enjoyed this very much, said it had a nice citrus flavor with the chocolate that was unusual and delicious. (I also sprinkled, heavily actually, orange zest on the whipped cream as well.)  A repeat for him...and it is something that can sit at room temperature (without the whipped cream topping), so I will bake one and take it down to Matt the next time I visit so he can do a little entertaining in his dorm room with a homemade dessert.  Best part:  it's very easy and quick to make.

      Abby's post here and Margaret's post here.

      Get the book and Bake! with us, we will even let you choose recipes in rotation with us, yes, we will!

On Vacation!

      Since Matt is headed off to college in less than two weeks (where did that time go?), we here at the house are going to spend as much time as possible spending enjoyable time with him, cooking/baking all his old favorites, going on a few mini-trips, and getting shopped and packed for the big move to IU. 

      I've decided that a blogging break is in order to accommodate all these things, so I'll see you back here in 2 weeks, August 23!

Sunday's Snippets

 

       READING:  Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland. There is a bit of a dreamer in me for all things historical, something magical happens when I read history or things of the past:  it transports me to another place, another time, another world.  I usually prefer reading factual (non-fiction) accounts of history as I enjoy the reality of it all. 

      Sometimes a book comes along that sounds intriguing that isn't non-fiction and I delve in with great enthusiasm, knowing that it will drive me insane with the inaccuracies and freedom of artistic expression that often happen with such books, but am sometimes willing to put up with all of that if the story line is well done.   Nicole was reading this book for her book club and while she wasn't actually enthusiastic in her endorsement, it intrigued me and I went to the library in search of this author. 

      I first read Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue which is rather fun as it traces a painting through its owners throughout the years from the 1600s to present, how the painting began, how it was sold/traded/acquired by the various owners, what it meant to them, etc.  Totally fictional, totally fun for me, so onward I headed to Luncheon of the Boating Party which fictionalizes the painting of that title by Auguste Renoir.
       It fictionalizes the artist, the people in the painting, and the time period in France.  Again, absolutely delightful. A good author to visit before I head back into more serious reading.

LISTENING TO:  The Indpls Sym Orch was performing Elton John and Billy Joel tunes this weekend, so certainly it is my duty to carry this over around here for a week, don't you think?  Good, I think so, too.
SWIMMING NEWS:  Matt went to Nationals (that's him left in the middle diving in for the start of the 4x100 Freestyle Relay and he and Daniel in photo below watching Harrison swim his leg of the relay)  out in California and had a great time, no real new gains in swim times.  There reaches a point in every season when that's all that season will net for a swimmer, so looking back in total, there were some great moments, new best times, and a lot of fun, all that one can ask.  

      Speaking of "all that one can ask," here's another photo of the 4x100 Freestyle Relay team at Nationals, again, Harrison is in the water swimming his leg of it.  The guy adjusting his swim cap is the person who makes it possible for the boys to have a National entry in this relay, Coach Chris.  Since CSC did not have four boys able to qualify in the last couple of years, Coach Chris (who happens to be 36 and definitely able to keep up with these 18/19 year olds) trained and was able to qualify with his times to swim so that the boys could have a fourth man for the National relay.  Not sure how many coaches would do that for their team, but we are awfully happy that this one does.  It started last winter at Nationals in Columbus, Ohio, and who knows how long it will continue!  It's been a great ride for the boys to have Chris swimming with them.

      Now they have two weeks off from formal swim practice, a time I like to characterize as "when Mermaids and Mermen grow legs and feet and traverse the earth for a bit before returning to their watery world."  Next up:  college swimming for IU!

COOKING BYTES:  Rebecca and I are having Pickle Up Weekend this weekend...she mentioned on Twitter that she was going to make pickles, I had seen a couple of recipes here and here and am a huge pickle fan, so I decided to join in and she sent me a recipe she was going to use as well.  Since I haven't a clue how to do processing/canning, I made refrigerator pickles that don't require that.  I might get around to posting them this week.

FAV NEW FIND:  I found an interesting little melon at the market today, something called a Lemon Melon.  It's rather smallish, smaller than a cantaloupe.  It is cantaloupe colored on the outside and light green on the inside, sort of a honeydew color but doesn't taste like a honeydew melon.   It tastes like citrus (lemon), hard to describe, but very lovely.  Just perfect for a lemon-lover like me!

FAV THING THIS WEEK:  It's been rather fun having Matt around to enjoy these summer days before he heads off to college...no practices or real commitments when he returned from California, just so nice to have him hanging around doing silly kid-like things like making smiley faces on his burger bun with the ketsup bottle...it's the little things I'm going to miss the most.  

WEEK IN REVIEW:  Mark and I did great with Empty Nest practice...we were married 14 years before the boys came along, so I guess we have that part down pretty good actually, so maybe it will all be fine and I will adjust quicker than I imagine.  Maybe. 

PRAYING FOR:  Bill and Jim, two great guys whose gals are depending on them to recover quickly.  I know I mentioned this last week, but keep praying, we have a ways to go yet.

 

Bake! Golden Sour Cream Layers and Perfect Meringue Buttercream (Chocolate)

 

      The seventeenth and eighteenth recipes that I made from Bake!  by Nick Malgieri were Golden Sour Cream Layers, found on page 125, and Perfect Meringue Buttercream (Chocolate), found on page 156. 

      This was Phyl's pick for the group as his week fell on his birthday and a nice birthday cake seemed like a good choice for the week.  Mark also had a birthday at this time so we were very happy to have a birthday cake for him as well with this recipe. 

      The ingredient list for the Golden Sour Cream Layers cake (page 125):  flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, egg yolks, sour cream, and vanilla. 

      The ingredient list for the Perfect Meringue Buttercream (Chocolate) icing (page156):  egg whites, salt, sugar, butter, chocolate, milk, and vanilla. 

      The cake was easy to bake, goes together quickly, and bakes up moist and lovely nicely.  I made a quarter of the recipe as birthday or not, cake is not a real favorite with the guys.  A quarter of the recipe baked in one 6" cake pan.  After it cooled, I sliced it so that I would have two layers and this worked just great to give it that birthday cake look.
 
      I think I must have done something wrong with the buttercream icing as I could not get it to thicken up properly.  I went over it in my mind trying to figure/reason it out but I just could not come up with what I had done wrong, so the mystery remains.  Abby also had problems with the consistency of the buttercream, but Margaret made the vanilla version and it turned out perfectly.  I have a feeling it might have been that melted chocolate and milk which made it too thin and impossible to spread.  I parked it in the refrigerator for several hours and still it did not tighten up so that I could spread it to frost the cake.  Not wanting to waste the ingredients, I started adding powdered sugar to it until it got firm enough to spread like frosting.  (Still, it was rather loose as you can see in the photos.)  The cake piece had to be on its side so that the top layer would not slide off the bottom layer.  Need to try this again, to be sure, but first I will make the vanilla version without the added chocolate to see how that works and what the icing should feel/look like.  
      Despite the minor icing glitch, the guys enjoyed the cake, thought it tasted good, and that it was a fine choice for a birthday cake, and then let me hand out the extra pieces to visitors as cake is just not a repeat thing around here...good for one slice and then they like to wait another month or two before having the next slice.  If this were a pie, it would be gone within 24 hours, that's just how things roll. 
      Thanks for the birthday pick, Phyl, heard your birthday was wonderful with lots of family to help celebrate!  I leave you with a rather goofy photo of the guys getting ready to enjoy the cake...oh, well, goofy is often endearing, right?  No candles as it would have left far too many holes in the cake when we pulled them out...lol!
  

      Get the book and Bake! with us, we will even let you choose recipes in rotation with us, yes, we will!

 

Thirty Minute Thursdays: Penne ai Funghi e Zucchine (Penne with Mushrooms and Zucchini)

      This week for Thirty Minute Thursdays, cooking our way through Giuliano Hazan's Thirty Minute Pasta book with Glennis and whoever else wants to join us, I made Penne ai Funghi e Zucchine (Penne with Mushrooms and Zucchini), on page 72. 

      This recipe also has fresh tomatoes in it as well...just such a great combination of summer produce. The ingredient list:  zucchini, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes, thyme, and penne (I also added a little of the pasta water as I wanted it a bit more moist).

      I made a fourth of this recipe which was enough for a generous portion for Mark and I each and another portion as well which I tossed into half of the whole recipe of the Rick Bayless Spicy Grilled Shrimp Stew that I made as I thought it would be a great combination and it was!  

      The pasta dish on its own is very filling with all those vegetables and would make a great vegetarian meal as the mushrooms always seem a little meaty to me, rounding out the rest of the flavors with a feel that you have actually had meat in the dish.  Definitely a repeat.  

      If you like the looks and sounds of it, buy the book as I am a believer in encouraging people to support the authors who put together these fabulous books by buying a copy, so you won't find the recipes posted from this book here.  (Buy it, the recipes are easy, the ingredients are easy to locate, it's not pricey, and there are photos of almost all the recipes.)

A Little Ellie Everyday: Caesar Salad with Lemon Pepper Shrimp

      The group at CEiMB has been one of my absolute favorites for a couple of years.  Not only do I like Ellie Krieger's recipes, but I love all the ladies that I have come to know through the group and cooking/baking the recipes with them.  Now that Matt is on his way to college and Mark and I are looking at Empty Nest, I am revamping my group participation for the blog-alongs knowing that I can't do so many (Matt can be counted on to put away most anything I cook/bake/make) and that the recipes chosen by a group are not always going to match how Mark and I eat when it is just the two of us here, i.e. I choose recipes where I can buy something and have it serve for a couple different recipes of my choice. 

      School starts back in a couple of weeks, so I will be back at work, and I have decided that I would like the freedom just to chose my own recipes each week for my Ellie selections.  I find myself cooking Ellie's recipes each week, more than one of them a week, and have certain ones I enjoy over and over for lunch.  I also like to buy things at the market when they are on special and in season...so with a great deal of thought, I have decided that I will exit my formal participation in the CEiMB group and continue to cook/bake/make Ellie's recipes (posting some) on my own.  Sigh. 

      I'm just going to call it A Little Ellie Everyday because I use either a recipe or a technique from Ellie every single day, that's how much I like the way she cooks/eats/rolls.  For this week, I was making grilled shrimp for my Twitter Chef Avatar, Rick Bayless, and I knew I could grill extra shrimp a la Ellie and make her Caesar Salad with Lemon Pepper Shrimp from The Food You Crave, page 102, you can also find the recipe online here. 

      Ingredient list:  Shrimp: shrimp, olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon zest, and lemon juice.  Garlic-Scented Croutons: French bread, olive oil, garlic, and salt.  Salad:  pasteurized egg, garlic, anchovy paste (I left this out), Dijon, Worcestershire, lemon juice, olive oil, Parmigiano Regiano, salt, pepper, romaine lettuce, and the croutons and shrimp. 

      This was absolutely delicious, the dressing is a nice combination with just a little tang to it from the lemon juice and mustard, the croutons were tasty yet not saturated in fat like the ones I find at the store in the packages, and it all went together quickly, the shrimp take just minutes to grill.  Definitely something I can do over and over again. 

      To check out other Ellie recipes, you can find the CEiMB blogroll here.

Twitter Chef Avatar Fun: Rick Bayless

      We are having a bit of avatar fun over at Twitter, my baking/cooking pals and I, just to shake things up a bit and confuse everyone each month as to who is who and all.  Nancy came up with the great idea of each of us picking a different chef for each month, all of us making anything we each selected to make from that chef's recipes, taking a photo of our efforts, and using that photo as our avatar for that month. 

      August's avatar chef is Rick Bayless, chosen by JoVonn.  The recipe I chose was RB's recipe for Caldo Camaron Asado (Spicy Grilled Shrimp Stew) and you can find it in his cookbook:  Mexico One Plate at a Time, on page 161-162 or you can find it online here (although it says "adapted," I checked and it is the very same recipe. 

      Anyone who knows me knows I am always up for soup anytime any season.  I was looking for a recipe this month with a bit of color as last month my avatar was all white with that coconut cupcake photo.  This seemed like it would be just great in looks and taste...and I was so right, this is a great soup. 

      I am a little "iffy" always on Mexican food, not really one of my first choices (or actually ever something I would choose) when dining out (and I don't make any of it at home other than the occasional toco or quesadilla), so I am looking forward to maybe expanding my horizons on the whole Mexican food scene, for which my family will be eternally grateful, no doubt as they love Mexican food.  Bring it on, I'm up for a little adventure.  This soup is not too spicy, but you can adjust that if you like, for me it was perfect and delicious!  Definitely a repeat.