Sunday breakfast in Red Wing

We had a very nice Sunday breakfast this morning, and for once I didn't have to make it or do the dishes. We took a very brief getaway to Red Wing, where we took in the Jeremy Messersmith concert at the recently restored Sheldon Theatre, dinner at Oliver's Wine Bar, and capped it with a refreshing stay at the Golden Lantern Inn. The latter was the home to three generations of the Red Wing Shoe exec's family before it was converted into a B&B. It makes a lovely one. And it was a lovely break from reality.

Pink mushroom pasta with pancetta and thyme

Pink oyster mushrooms! Ramps! Radish sprouts! The Midtown Farmers Market opened for the season this weekend, thus flipping the switch from the time of year when I plan menus and then go to the store to when I go to the market and then plan menus. If you see pink mushrooms, you just have to let them drive the bus.

The market is in a new, temporary location this year next to Moon Palace Books. It's kind of elbows-in compared with its former roomy quarters, but everyone was in a good mood, and just glad it wasn't snowing like it has been for some market openers. 

 

Pasta with mushrooms and pancetta

Adapted from Bon Appetit, October 2016. The original recipe called for sliced proscuitto, but I didn't have any on hand, so pancetta it was, which is what happens when you shop first and plan later.

Ingredients

1 pound penne pasta

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 ounces diced pancetta

1 pound mixed mushrooms (oysters, chanterelles, cremini, shiitake), torn into bite-size pieces

2 medium shallots, finely chopped

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

1 cup broth

⅓ cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons butter

Method

Bring a large pot of boiling water to a boil. Salt liberally and cook pasta to al dente, reserving some cooking liquid for possible use in the sauce.

Meanwhile in a large deep skillet, cook pancetta until crisp. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan and saute mushrooms until browned and tender, tossing often. Stir in shallots, thyme and salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until shallots are tender. Add stock and simmer for about 10 minutes until sauce has reduced. Stir in cream and butter and heat through. Add pancetta. Add pasta and stir to coat, adding reserved pasta liquid as needed to make desired sauce consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Rating: Quite nice. Saucy without being cloying. The pink mushrooms don't stay pink, but they stay tasty.

Orecchiette with arugula tomato ricotta sauce

I was a little skeptical of a double-starch dish involving both pasta and potatoes, but this works.

Orecchiette with arugula

Adapted from “Cook’s Encyclopedia of Pasta”

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 small red onion, finely chopped, divided

1 (14.5-ounce) can crushed fire-roasted tomatoes

½ teaspoon dried oregano

Pinch of cayenne

2 tablespoons wine (white or red both work)

2 potatoes, peeled and diced, about 7 ounces

2¾ cups orecchiette

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

5 ounces  arugula leaves

½ cup ricotta

Grated Parmesan for garnish

Method

While bringing pasta water to a boil, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet. Add half of the onion to the pan and cook over medium low heat until softened. Add tomatoes, oregano, cayenne and wine. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.

When pasta water comes to a boil, salt generously and add orecchiette and potatoes. Cook until potatoes are tender and pasta is al dente.

Meanwhile, heat remaining olive oil in another skillet. Cook garlic and remaining onion in the oil for 2 minutes. Add arugula in batches, stirring until wilted and adding more as you go.

Toss drained pasta and potatoes with tomato mixture. Add arugula mixture, ricotta and salt and pepper to taste. Serve with grated Parmesan. Serves 4-6, depending on whether it’s a main course or side dish.

Rating: Nice. The ricotta makes it a vaguely creamy tomato sauce. Very filling, but not leaden, despite the double dose of starch. I'd make it again.

Peanut butter oatmeal no-bake cookies

Yes. These are no-bake cookies. Yes, I'm slumming. What's my excuse? All those leftover little bits of things from holiday baking that are languishing in the cupboard taking up precious space. This recipe used up a couple of those.

Peanut butter oatmeal bites

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

Ingredients

½ cup peanut butter

⅓ cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

1¼ cups shredded coconut, divided

1 cup rolled oats

¼ cup semisweet chocolate pieces (or bittersweet if you prefer)

¼ cup snipped dried cherries (or other dried fruit)

Method

Mix peanut butter, honey and vanilla in a bowl until well combined. Stir in ½ cup coconut, oats, chocolate and fruit. Cover and chill 30 minutes.

Roll mixture into 30 balls, each about 1-inch around. Roll in remaining coconut to coat. Store in refrigerator.  You can store the unrolled dough for a week, rolling them into balls as you need them and have time. The original recipe called for pulsing the coconut you use for coating into smaller pieces, which I imagine gives it a slightly different look as a finished cookie, but I didn’t bother and it still stuck fairly well.

Rating: Let's face it. No-bake cookies are really pretty tasty, one of those things that fall into the guilty pleasure category. Unlike the no-bake cookies that were the stuff of school cafeteria legend growing up, these at least sneak some fruit into the mix. But at 111 calories for a tiny cookie, who are we kidding? 

They do have the advantage that they're pretty easy to make gluten free, providing you buy gluten free oats and vanilla, so if you've got some GFreers on the horizon, there's that. They make a perfectly dandy thing to stick in a picnic basket as a small finishing treat.

If this has you nostalgic for those school cookies, here's the recipe I copied years ago from Marguerite Bauer of Manning, Iowa, as submitted for the Carroll Times Herald's annual "What's Cookin' for the Holidays" special section published Nov. 9, 1983. I still have that reader-submitted issue grown yellow with age, although it hasn't seen much use. One only needs so many recipes for Seafoam Salad.

No bake cookies

Ingredients

2 cups sugar

¼ pound of butter

½ cup peanut butter

3 cups oatmeal

½ cup cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla

Method

Combine sugar, butter and milk in a medium-size saucepan. Bring to a hard boil for 1 minute. Stir in peanut butter, oatmeal, cocoa and vanilla. Drop by spoonfuls on foil. Store refrigerated.

Rating: If you liked the no-bake cookies they gave you in junior high, you'll like these. If you didn't, you still won't.

Parchment baked fish with thyme and olives

 

It's finally nice enough today to open up the back door and let in some fresh air, just one week after there was a heavy blanket of snow outside. With any luck winter may have given up and in a few weeks we can start moving the overwintering herbs back outside. They don't always survive the transition, so we figure we should make liberal use of them just in case. This dish takes advantage of the now spindly but growing lemon thyme plant. 

Parchment baked fish with thyme and olives

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens, February 2019

Ingredients

½ pound fingerling potatoes, halved lengthwise

½ tablespoon water

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 small fish fillets (firm whitefish like halibut or cod work well), about ¾ pound total

8 to 10 sprigs of fresh thyme (lemon thyme is extra nice, but not necessary)

Pitted black and green olives (a mix of marinated olives from the deli olive bar is dandy)

Method

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place potatoes in a microwave-safe dish along with a ½ tablespoon of water. Cover and microwave at full power for 5 minutes. Let cool slightly.

Cut 2 15-inch squares of parchment paper. Drizzle the center of one half of each sheet with a bit of olive oil. Place half of cooled potatoes on top. Place the fish fillets on top of the potatoes. Top with several sprigs of fresh thyme. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange olives around fish. Drizzle remaining olive oil over the top.

Fold the other half of the parchment over the top of the fish. Starting at one corner at the fold, start folding both layers of parchment up toward the center, pleating and pinching as you go, kind of like crimping a pie crust. Fold the last corner under to seal.

Transfer packets to a baking sheet. Bake at 425 for 10 minutes on convection or 15 minutes in a conventional oven. Fish should flake easily. Watch for steam when you peel open the packets. Serves 2. 

Rating: Really quite nice, and reasonably filling without being heavy. It's fast enough for a weeknight supper and cleanup is easy. Dave was quite taken with it. I think the olives you pick make a big difference; we used a mix of marinated and unmarinated olives and it added quite a bit of nice flavor as well as color.

Fish with saffron leek sauce

 

I'm more of a Julian calendar kind of gal when it comes to New Year's. March 25, close to the equinox, seems a much more logical time than the Gregorian notion. And if we're being arbitrary, why not round it up to an even month and claim April 1? It seems like an appropriate time of year to celebrate new beginnings, and a much better time to set resolutions than the dead of winter when your main goal is survival.

The past few years I've waited to make my resolutions until today, when everything seems more possible. Bonus: No one asks you about how you're doing with your resolutions in April, when everyone else has moved on.

Many of my yet-to-be-broken resolutions revolve around a theme of deploying existing resources, so it's bound to trickle down to the recipes I make. This first one comes from one of seven cookbooks I've identified as targets for culling. My plan is to cook the recipes in them that look plausibly tasty and then pass them along to others. Why seven? Because there are seven cookbooks stacked not so neatly across the top of my other cookbooks because they don't fit on their very generous shelf. Of course this plan only works if I don't acquire any more (see separate resolution later...)

Up first, something that falls under the general resolution of eat more fish. So happy New Year to any fellow fools out there.

Fillet of fish in leek and saffron sauce

Adapted from “Low Fat,” a Barnes & Noble publication I picked up for $5.98 years ago.

Note: Naturally, when I adapted it, I made it ever-so-slightly less goody-goody by adding a tablespoon of olive oil and cooking the leeks in the oil, followed by the broth. If you want the low-fat version, blanch the leeks in boiling salted water for 4 minutes instead and incorporate the broth when the leeks are added to the sauce.

Ingredients

2 leeks, white parts only, rinsed and sliced

½ cup vegetable stock

¼ cup dry white wine

2 tablespoons dry vermouth

½ cup crème fraiche

Saffron

1¼ pound perch fillets (or some other firm white fish)

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

Fresh dill sprigs for garnish

Method

In a large skillet, heat 1½ tablespoons olive oil over medium low heat. Add leeks and cook, stirring often, until they’re slightly tender and golden. Add vegetable stock and cover, simmering until leeks are tender.

In a saucepan, heat white wine and vermouth to boiling. Continue cooking until reduced by about half. Add the crème fraiche, a pinch of saffron and the leeks with broth. Simmer to thicken a bit and keep warm while cooking fish. Season to taste with salt.

In same large skillet, heat remaining 1½ tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Salt and pepper fish fillets and add to the pan. Cook on both sides until fish readily flakes.

To serve, dish up cooked leeks on 4 plates, using a slotted spoon to leave most of the liquid in the pan. Top with fish. Spoon over the sauce and garnish with dill sprigs and a pinch of saffron.

Rating: Not bad. The sauce is repeatable and could have other uses. Like maybe with risotto?