Drink and a nosh: La Boheme and apple bacon cheddar crostini

La Boheme
From ayearofcocktails.com

Ingredients
1 ounce vodka
1½ ounce cranberry juice
½ ounce black raspberry liqueur
½ ounce St. Germain

Method
Combine ingredients with ice in a shaker and shake well. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Rating: Tasty, but the cranberry kind of overshadows the other more delicate flavors. Shame to waste St. Germain on something that tromps on its subtlety. But enjoyable for all that.

Apple-bacon-cheddar crostini
Adpated from Betty Crocker's "Tiny Bites

Ingredients
6 slices bacon
4 cups peeled, chopped apples
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger or ½ teaspoon ground
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, plus more for garnish.
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons apple juice
24 slices from a French baguette
2 tablespoons or so olive oil
1½ cups shredded sharp Cheddar

Method
In a large skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels and crumble. Preheat oven to 450.

In bacon drippings, cook apples and ginger until apples pick up some color and are soft. Stir in brown sugar, thyme and salt. Cook 1 minute, then stir in apple juice. Cook another minute or so until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and cool completely.

Brush bread slices with half the olive oil. Toast in the oven for about 3 to 5 minutes until browned. Flip over, brush with remaining olive oil and toast the other side lightly. Remove from oven.

Combine cheese with apple mixture. Put a tablespoon or so of mixture on top of each crostini slice. Return from oven and bake about 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Garnish with more thyme if desired.

 Rating: Delightful little things. A nice blend of savory and a touch of sweet. It could work both in an elegant buffet or a more casual gathering, since it's got the basic appeal of apple pie meets bacon and goey cheese.

Play along: Lake Street Dive's "Fun Machine," a fun collection of covers that will change how you feel about "Rich Girl." 

Fancy pants pantries

Why do staged pantries have at least three of everything? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. I realize that people selling you storage items fill them with multiples of something so it looks neater. Like I have room for six bottles of Perrier in a wicker basket on my shelf at all times. 

What set me off is one of the latest promo e-mails from a mega organized container living colossus, urging me to Shop This Perfect Pantry Space. The Perfect Pantry Space has room for multiples of everything, all in neat baskets spaced just-so apart. Note that those baskets are placed apart, as in there are actual gaps on shelves. On purpose. As if anyone has enough room for gaps between anything on a shelf and doesn’t stack things higher and deeper, wedged in as much as humanly possible.

In Perfect Pantry World, anything that comes in a nice, rectangular stackable box is transferred to a set of see-through storage containers so you can see that you’ve got fancy spiral pasta, because otherwise how would you know by looking at the box labeled fancy spiral pasta? Apparently you also transfer your Oreos to transparent storage in which you have neatly stacked them. And even though you can see them, you somehow still have Oreos.

Many of those clear storage devices are round. Because round is always an efficient use of a rectangular space, right? But that’s OK, because they’re spaced apart just-so anyway.

Apparently in Perfect Pantry World, we also label our food, because flour and sugar in clear canisters are evidently not recognizable otherwise.

What I really want of course, is a real pantry, not a corner rotary unit where objects like to self-eject off into the least accessible crannies. I grew up with walk-in pantries, and have been coping badly ever since. Well, what I really, really want is a butler's pantry. And what I really, really, really want is the butler's pantry at Glensheen, which should please even the most fastidious of butlers.

In the meantime, the pantry paraphernalia at the big box store is 15 percent off. But at this point, I know that buying more stuff to put other stuff in doesn't solve the ultimate problem: I buy too much stuff for my space, which doesn't match my ambitions. Rant mode off.

Chicken in Chianti tomato sauce

 

Pollo all’Arrabiata

Adapted from “A Table in Tuscany,” collected and illustrated by Leslie Forbes.This is a charmingly illustrated book that makes you want to up and move to Italy. Or at least book a rental. Only quibble: The ingredients are listed in capital letters, making it very hard to read. But one imagines having enough time to decipher them while ensconced in one's villa.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 chicken cut up into about 8 to 10 pieces

2 cups Chianti

½ hot chili pepper, slightly crushed

4 to 5 tomatoes, roughly chopped

Method

Heat oil over medium heat in a large deep skillet. Cook onion and garlic until tender. Salt and pepper chicken pieces and add to pan. Cook until well browned on both sides. (If you don’t have a large enough pan, you might need to do this in stages.)

Add wine and chili pepper and cook over low heat until wine is reduced by half. Count on this step taking at least 20 minutes. Flip chicken over and add tomatoes. Cover and cook for another 25 minutes or until chicken is done.

The serving suggestion is over long ribbon pasta tossed with olive oil and parsley. At any rate, something to slurp up the wine tomato sauce is in order.

Rating: The translation of the recipe is Enraged Chicken, which I just find delightful. It gets its name from the hot pepper, but honestly, it's fairly mellow by the time it's cooked in all that Chianti. I'd say it's more like a mildly irritated chicken. At any rate, it's a sauce with a nice amount of complexity. I'd file it under a not particularly difficult Sunday night supper at home for the family. And you'll have part of a bottle of Chianti leftover to go with it, so make it a tasty one.

Cauliflower fried rice

Money can't buy happiness, but it can sure buy bowls that make me happy. I'm giddy with my new set of pretty lunch bowls. They're dishwasher and microwave safe and come with nicely sealing lids that have built-in pop-up vents so you can use them as covers in the microwave.

I had thought the green one was going to be the dud color, the one you decide you might as well take on the lousiest day of the week since it already blows. But then I saw the inside and now it might be my new favorite.  No idea where I'm going to store them, but they'll probably be in the frig or dishwasher most of the time...

So now that I've further betrayed how shallow I am because I like things, here's my latest attempt to make my work lunches more interesting. However it turns out, it's at least in a prettier bowl instead of a plastic Gladware container, and that makes me happy.

Cauliflower fried rice
Adapted from jaysbakingmecrazy.com. It's a Paleo recipe as it was written.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 large red onion, chopped

1½ cup chopped carrots

1 teaspoon salt

1½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon garlic powder 

1 large cauliflower head, grated (you can do this in the food processor in short order, or use a large-holed hand grater)

½ cup coconut aminos (or soy sauce, if you don't care about the Paleo bit)

2 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork

3 green onions, chopped

 

Method

Melt coconut oil in a large deep skillet over medium heat. Add onion and carrots and cook until tender.  Add salt, ginger and garlic powder as it's nearing tenderness. Stir in cauliflower and coconut aminos. Cook another 5 minutes.

Push mixture to one side and add eggs. When they're scrambled, stir into the rest of the mixture. Add most of the green onions and stir in. Use remaining green onions to garnish each serving.

About that: The original recipe said it makes 6 servings. Perhaps my cauliflower didn't qualify as large, but I thought that made pretty skimpy servings, so I divided it into 5 servings. Of course, the fact that I had a set of five new bowls waiting to be filled might have had something to do with it.

Rating: Tastes like fried rice, which I happen to like. The ginger really comes through nicely. Not exactly the same texture, but it's still got some body. I could see making this again. It doesn't necessarily need reheating, which is handy for a lunch. And the new bowl still gets rave reviews after actual use.

Note: Coconut aminos can be hard to find. Some people have seen it at Whole Foods or Trader Joes, but it's not something you find at every mainstream grocery store. Plus, it's pricey, as specialty ingredients are wont to be. Here's a link for making your own substitute that also doesn't have coconut, in case that's an issue for you. Although it has beef broth in it, so if you're vegetarian, that's out. At this point, nearly every substance violates someone's dietary restrictions.

Drink and a nosh: Ninotchka and roasted garlic saffron toasts

It's not just a great Greta Garbo movie, it's a cocktail. We put it in the Netflix queue after the recent death of Robert Osborne, notable to many as the urbane TCM host.

I'd read a retrospective by Michael Phillips, who covers movies and such for the Chicago Tribune, and knew Osborne. Phillips found in going through e-mails from Osborne one that closed like this: "Here’s hoping that life for you is like a Lubitsch film.” 

 I need that in my holiday cards, at least for those who would get the reference. Ernst Lubitsch was a highly productive movie maker, including such bits of froth as "Shop Around the Corner," "Lady Windemere's Fan" and "Ninotchka."

So here's a toast with a Ninotchka to the man who introduced many of us to some great old movies. And here's a wish that life for you is like a Lubitsch film.

Ninotchka

From scienceofdrink.com

Ingredients

1½ ounce vodka

½ ounce crème de cacao

½ ounce fresh lemon juice

Method

Pour ingredients into a shaker over ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Rating: Surprisingly good. I confess I made this just as a gimmick to match the movie title, but didn't have high hopes. Lemon juice and cacao notes seemed like they'd be an odd combo, but bizarrely they make a quite nice little cocktail that bears repeating.

Note: You may now see creme de cacao labeled as creme de cocoa. This rebranding baffles me, unless they think people are too dense to associate cacao with chocolate flavors? At any rate, it is indeed the same substance.

Roasted garlic saffron toasts
Adapted from "Movie Menus" by Francine Segan

Ingredients
1 baguette
4 heads of garlic, roasted

½ cup heavy cream

Pinch of saffron

4 ounces goat cheese, softened

Generous pinch ground nutmeg

2 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled

Method

Slice baguette into 3/8-inch slices. Toast at 350 degrees for 5 minutes. Set aside.

Simmer cream and saffron in a small saucepan until reduced by half. It will sort of collapse and become almost custardy. Cool slightly.

In a food processor, combined cream mixture, roasted garlic, goat cheese and nutmeg. Pulse until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Spread over baguette slices. Top with crumbled bacon.

Rating: That cream sauce is lovely, even before bacon(!). There's a nice lightness to the spread and great flavor. I'd call this one a keeper.

Play along: To keep in the "Ninotchka" mood, I'd put on the soundtrack to "Midnight in Paris," or "Chansons de Paris, Vol. 12."

Arugula and roasted pear salad with maple-Dijon dressing

Yard long beans. Armenian cucumbers.  Parisian carrots. Winter Wonderland kale. As the seed packet orders start arriving, my appetite for greens and greenery needs an outlet.

So I turned to “The Complete Kitchen Garden,” a blend of garden design and 100 seasonal recipes to savor the garden produce you plant. It’s a feast for the eyes, with charmingly rendered illustrations to map your theoretically idyllic backyard. 

Naturally the drawings convey an orderly plan that in reality would never exist in my raised beds and potted potager, at least not for more than two perfect days in June. Then the weeds and pests hit. Produce is either scant or overabundant.  Eventually some wayward vine finally foils all efforts to make it climb its pretty trellis and the next thing you know it’s a really cold day in fall and you’re on a ladder rescuing a spaghetti squash from high up in the lilac tree branches.

But a gal can dream, at least in March.

Arugula and roasted pear salad

Adapted from “The Complete Kitchen Garden,” by Ellen Ecker Ogden

Ingredients

2 tablespoons pine nuts

1 tablespoon butter

4 small pears, peeled, cored and sliced lengthwise

2 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 garlic clove, minced

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

½ teaspoon maple syrup

6 cups arugula

¼ cup dried cranberries

Parmesan shavings for garnish

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or grease it.

In a small skillet, toast pine nuts. Remove from pan and set aside.

Melt butter in the skillet. Remove from heat and toss with pears and sugar. Transfer pears to prepared baking sheet. Bake until just tender, about 10-15 minutes depending on thickness and ripeness.

In a large bowl, combine oil, vinegar, garlic, mustard and syrup to emulsify. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Toss mixture with arugula.

Place dressed arugula on 4 salad plates. Array baked pear slices around the top. Sprinkle each with 1 tablespoon of cranberries, ½ tablespoon of pine nuts and Parmesan shavings.

Rating: Quite a nice salad. It’s certainly similar to some I’ve made before, so perhaps it’s padding the new recipe count, but it’s a particularly nice rendition. Next time I might sub in sliced almonds or chopped pistachios for the pine nuts for a different flavor and texture component. And I will say that I think depending on the size of your pears, you could easily get by with a half pear per person, rather than a whole.

Sweet chili lentil salad spring rolls

 

It’s officially spring, so I thought I’d try spring rolls for lunch.

Sweet chili lentil salad rolls

Adapted from lentils.org

Ingredients

1½ cups cooked lentils* (green if you can find them)

6 tablespoons sweet chili sauce, divided

8 spring roll rice paper wrappers

2½ cups arugula

1 cup grated carrot (I used a mix of grated yellow carrot and julienned orange carrots)

1 cup finely sliced purple cabbage

Method

Combine cooked lentils with 4 tablespoons sweet chili sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

To prepare rice paper wrappers, pour warm water into a large bowl. Dip rice paper wrappers, one at a time, into the water until they are soft, flexibile but still firm enough for structural integrity. (This happens quite quickly, so don’t wander away, and make sure to get all your filling ingredients out ready to go before you start.) Dry with paper towels and place on a flat work surface.

To fill rolls, start with a layer of arugula, then a scant 3 tablespoons of the lentils. Top with a sprinkling of carrot and cabbage and then a few more arugula leaves. Don't overfill them or you'll have something too messy to eat and not rollable.

Form wraps like a burrito: Fold up the bottom of the roll, then fold left and right sides in, and then roll up.

The drill: If you’re serving them on a plate at home, cut rolls in half and serve with remaining sweet chili sauce. If you’re taking them for lunch, I recommend leaving them whole, since otherwise you’ve got a big mess on your hands, quite literally. Transport the additional chili sauce separately, and bring a fork. 

Rating: Tasty, and surprisingly filling. The recipe figures 8 servings, with each spring roll being a serving at 120 calories. If you’re taking other enough other food along with it, it might cut it.If I was packing this for Dave, I'd include two per serving.

*To cook lentils: Combine ½ cup lentils and 2 cups liquid. If you’re just using water, add ½ teaspoon of salt. Bring liquid and lentils to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 to 30 minutes until tender but not mushy; you’re using these in a salad, not a soup. Drain well. (Green lentils are more flavorful, but can be harder to find; the sort of olive brownish ones needs a bit more love to be tasty. I recommend cooking them in broth or some other liquid with flavor, such as liquid leftover from a jar of roasted red peppers, maybe a tad of pickling brine or that sort of thing. Adding a sprig of herbs or a chunk of onion to the cooking water helps too.)