Egg salad

As you read this, I'm riding a train to Leukerbad, in the Western side of Switzerland, where I'll spend a couple of days skiing and hanging out at the beautiful thermal baths. In case you are wondering, no, I'm not always on vacation, as one of my friends said the other day. It's just a little weekend getaway, which will make the coldest days of the year easier to bear. I know it may sounds a little crazy to go to the mountains during the chilliest week of them all, but I'd rather be cold ina place where nbeing in cold weather is fun, rather than freezing my ass off by the lake, with the humidity killing me and making me shiver to bone.

Before leaving I didn't bothered going grocery shopping, so I had to get a little creative with my lunches. Egg salad sandwich sounded like a good idea - I hadn't had the stuff since I left the U.S. in April of '10 - so I improvised with what I had in the fridge. It turned out great, exactly what I had in mind: to make it low fat, I used yogurt instead of mayo, added some paprika for flavor and capers and for saltiness.

EGG SALAD:

1 hard boiled egg, minced
1 tablespoon of capers, minced
2 small pickles, minced
2 tablespoons minced onion
Salt and paprika, to taste
3 tablespoons of plain low fat yogurt (or more if you need it)

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl.

Cornbread stuffing with sausage, apples and fennel

 It's almost 5 pm now and I have made some progress. I'm actually proud of myself, since I have baked two batches of cornbread, made homemade pate', cranberry sauce and, last but not least, this wonderful stuffing. 

Making this was actually one of the easiest tasks today. I mean, between finding the freaking turkey - which is hard to come by whole in Switzerland - and making the cornbread, I'm already exhausted. It's a lot of cooking, I'll tell you. And right now I'm baking a pumpkin cheesecake, which is particularly stressful for me because I hate baking and I hate making dessert. So you can figure how much I hate BAKING DESSERT. 

Anyhow, here's the recipe for the stuffing, which I have tried and is delicious. Trust me, it doesn't get much better than this!

CORNBREAD STUFFING


Cooking spray
2 links hot Italian sausage
10 ounces frozen pearl onions
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3 small red Michigan apples, skin on, chopped
1/2 large fennel bulb, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 loaf cubed cornbread (about 8 cups)
2 eggs
1 cup chicken broth

In a large skillet brown the sausage in its own fat, crumbling with a wooden spoon. Cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Add frozen pearl onions and sprinkle with brown sugar. Cool until the onions are tender and sugar has dissolved, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add celery, fennel and apple (I left the skins on for color, but you can remove them if you like.) Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with thyme and cook for about ten minutes.

Spray a 10x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Mix vegetable mixture and bread cubes in it. In a small bowl beat the eggs into the broth. Season with salt and pepper. Pour over bread and veggie mixture, toss to coat. Bake in a 400F oven for 45 minutes.

Skillet cornbread

Here I am, on Thanksgiving Eve (does that even exist?), trying to make stuff ahead so I don't lose my mind tomorrow like I did in 2008, break my knee like I did in 2009 or end up with food even in my hair like I did in 2010. You live, you learn, they say. We'll see. 

As of now, it's 11 am on Wednesday and I've already baked cornbread for my gluten-free stuffing. That's all folks. It's not like I'm crazy ahead, but in the next few hours I'm going to crank out some serious food... at least the appetizers, the stuffing and the cranberry sauce.

I'll keep you all posted. Hope you are having a great almost-holiday weekend =)

A funny note: buttermilk doesn't exist in Switzerland. Or if it does they hide it so well I couldn't find. So my day started by having to make buttermilk, which is not complicated, you just mix a scant cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice... but it kind of makes you think about the challenges ahead.

SKILLET CORNBREAD

• 3 teaspoons vegetable oil 
• 2 cups buttermilk 
• 1 large egg 
• 1 3/4 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 
  

• Coat bottom and sides of a 10-inch cast-iron skillet with bacon drippings; heat in a 450° oven for 10 minutes.
• Whisk together buttermilk and egg. Add cornmeal, stirring well.
• Stir in baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour batter into hot skillet.
• Bake at 450° for 15 minutes.

Open faced pulled pork sandwiches

I've been kind of lazy with my blog lately, but I have a good excuse. At least, I think it's a pretty good one. With my parents being here visiting from the U.S., we have dined out a lot, especially since it's venison season and most local restaurants serve all kinds of delicious dishes.

Also, I've just been out of town for the weekend. I went to... drumroll please... BERLIN! I had always wanted to go and, finally, I've made it there. It was amzing trip, although a short one. I'll tell you all about it in a different post, though, with pics and all that other fun stuff.

For now I'm just going to share a recipe with you, the first ever made with my brand new crockpot. You have to know that slowcookers are not popular in Europe. I know, I know. It sounds crazy, since they are so awesome and useful... still, you cannot find them anywhere. Most people don't know what they are. I missed mine so much, I started thinking about having my mom ship it to me from Florida. But then I found one on Amazon.it and forwarded the link to my sister asking her to give it to me as a birthday present. And the rest is history. I now have a crock pot and it came just in time for me to make some good slowcooked, fall recipes.

I decided to inaugurate it by making spicy pulled pork. It turned out great, and when I came home from work the house smelled delicious.

PULLED PORK
Adapted from http://www.skinnytaste.com

• 2.5 lb pork shoulder
• 6 cloves garlic cut into slivers
• cumin
• garlic powder
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2-3 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
• 2 bay leaves

Season pork with salt and pepper. In a medium sauté pan on medium-high heat, brown it for about 10 minutes. Allow to cool.

Using a sharp knife, cut small holes into meat and insert garlic slivers. Season with cumin and garlic powder all over.

Place chicken broth in the crockpot, add bay leaves and chipotles. Add pork in crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours. After 8 hours, shred meat using two forks and combine well with the juices that accumalated at the bottom. Adjust salt and cumin. Let it cook another 15-30 minutes.

All-American brunch at California Bakery

When I worked as a food critic at the Naples Daily News my least favorite assignment was writing about Italian restaurants. Being Italian and all, my expectations were so high I easily ended up disappointed. And it wasn't the chefs' fault, most of the time. It was just the ingredients. It was the produce. The water. Even the salt was different. The chefs —the smart and the worldly ones at least— knew it too. Many times, as I was chatting with them while we were both off the clock they would say "I know this dish doesn't taste the same in Italy." And I would nod, because it didn't. And I would feel for them because I encountered that same problem when I cooked the dishes of my childhood in my Southwest Florida kitchen. Nothing tasted exactly the same.

I felt kind of the same way while I was lazily walking downtown Milano towards California Bakery, where my best friend and I were headed for brunch. And it wasn't just a brunch. It was my first "Made in Italy" brunch. I wanted brunch to be good, but I would lie if I said that I wasn't a little apprehensive. Would brunch live up to my very American expectations? Would it be worth the trip and the price tag? I'm happy to say that the answer to both questions is yes. Brunch at California Bakery is enjoyable, tasty and definitely worth a trip downtown.

Brunch is served on Saturdays, Sundays and festivities from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m., so there's no need to rush out of bed on the weekend to get served. Which, if you ask me, is really nice. A six hour brunch also dilutes the people throughout the afternoon, so there's never too much to wait for a table which is also a perk. California Bakery has several locations but, beware, they only serve brunch in three of them: Via Larga 19, Piazza Sant'Eustorgio 4 and Viale Premuda 44, so don't show up at the Largo Augusto store or you'll be disappointed (although you can still sit down and have lunch!) The Via larga store, the one we went to, is not very big, but the two story windows make it airy and bright, the white wooden floors and the green walls infuse the dining room with that peculiar calmness that just screams 'relaxing weekend brunch'.

Back to the food, though. California Bakery offers menu selections that are the closest you''ll  ever get to a true American brunch in Milano, so if you are looking for that all-American experience, this is the place for you. I know because I've looked at more than 20 menus around town and, ladies and gentlemen, I cringed. A lot. What's so difficult about brunch, one might ask? It's a good question. The answer is nothing, if restaurants owners knew what brunch is. Most of them don't and it shows. What they think brunch is, is an aperitivo buffet you serve at noon instead of during cocktail hour.

But that's not the case at California Bakery. No Sir. They know what brunch is and, for the most part, they stay true to American tradition and recipes. Now this will make many of you smile, but tell me that someone in Italy has bagels on their menu and you can bet I'll be practically running to give the place a try. What can I say? Bagels are delicious. Italian love bagels. And yet, they are not readily available, which of course makes them even more delicious in our minds. Because we can't get them.

So as soon as I saw that they had something called the University Plate (about 15 Euros, depending on what bagel or sandwich you choose), a big smile spread on my face. Although the offerings on the menu were plentiful I knew what I was going to have, and it had something to do with bagels and smoked salmon. Predictable? Usually I'm not like that at all, but after ten long months of bagel abstinence I was not going to turn down my favorite breakfast dish.

Because, let's face it, there's a lot to choose from at California Bakery. There's the Healthy Plate, featuring yogurt, granola and a homemade muffin; there's the Chelsea Plate, showcasing a generous slice of the quiche of the day served with mixed greens; and of course there's the more classic East Side Plate —scrambled eggs with bacon, hash browns and either a bagel or multigrain bread. Really, it all comes down to, there's something for everyone at California Bakery, including a Kosher Plate for those who need it. All brunch dishes come with complimentary sides —potatoes either roasted or fried and, a little oddly spinach— a basket of just-out-of-the-oven mixed breads with aromatic butters, a mug of American style coffee and a one liter pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice.

Food quality is above average, especially when you look at other restaurants in town that have the nerve to call themselves American. Take it from someone who has lived and eaten enthusiastically in the Unites States for ten years: skip the others and go directly to California Bakery. The Club sandwich will make a big grin spread on your face, and so will the BLAT sandwich —a classic BLT with the addition of avocado.

My bagel was huge. Huge and delicious, stuffed with cream cheese, capers, slices of tomatoes and, of course, smoked salmon. Only one thing would have made it better: not having sesame seeds on it. I'm not a big sesame seed fan, especially when it comes to my bagel, and it would have been nice to know ahead of time —on the menu perhaps?— that tat's the way the bagel was going to be. The pancakes my friend ordered were fluffy and delicious and her eggs over easy were cooked just to perfection, as were the potatoes.

My only complain with California Bakery? The service. Don't go there in a rush because, although there's more than 10 waiters and waitresses working at every given time, they are slow, both to take orders and to deliver them . It's a small price to pay but trust me, if you really want a true American-style brunch head down to California Bakery this weekend. For an hour or so you will feel as if you are sitting somewhere along the Golden State.

Not your usual, canned chicken noodle soup

I was going to call this post "Not your mother's chicken noodle soup", but then I figured that most of you probably have mothers that make theirs from scratch, so I had to abandon the idea. Because this is what this post is about: about being sick and longing for good, comforting soup. And it's also about being too sick to go to Amsterdam with your best friend and realizing how much it sucks to be sick and be by your self. If I had a tag called "pity party" I would definitely file this recipe under it, but I like to think that this is the first and last time I'll need it so, I guess I'll classify it under soup and low fat and call it a day. 


Last Monday when I came home from Stockholm, as I was driving home from the airport, I started feeling a little weird, as in not hungry at all although it was 10 p.m. and I hadn't had anything since lunch. I thought it just had to be the tiredness from all that walking in the cold wind, so when I went home I went straight to bed thinking that would make me feel better. Wrong. It wasn't that I was tired. It wasn't the walking or the wind or all those other things. It was a stomach flu that kept me up most of the night. Last time I had one of those I was traveling through California with my parents and I was 11, so I had no recollection of what kind of medicine and remedies one has to use in these cases. After going through the medicine cabinet, though, I realized that even if I had known everything in that stupid drawer had expired around 1999. My mother calls it "being a healthy family". I called it something else at 5 a.m. while sweating cold sweat and feeling too nauseous to stand, but I won't repeat it here because there might be kids reading this. So Tuesday I still felt under the weather. No more nausea, but my stomach still felt weird. And the weirdest thing of all was that I still wasn't hungry. At all. I sipped on herbal tea and nibble on saltines. I spent the whole day on the couch desperately trying to make myself feel better. The next day at 7 a.m. I had to be on a plane to Amsterdam with Francesca, dammit. So I went to bed at 8 p.m., confident that when the alarm would go off at 5 a.m. on Wednesday I would wake up feeling like my normal self again.


It didn't happen. 


What did happen, instead, is that Francesca called me at 5 a.m. to tell me that she was also feeling lousy, describing me the same symptoms I had had Monday night. We knew right away our trip to Amsterdam was not going to happen. I mean, what's the point in going to visit a new, wonderful city when all you want to do is curl up in a ball and die? We decided to stay home and spent the next three days talking to each other over Skype, both laying on the couch too weak to even sit up. We were miserable. So miserable that we were dreaming about having someone show up at our doorstep with some kind of comfort soup. On the third day I was so desperate I was dreaming of Campbell's chicken noodle soup. Which is when I realized that I actually had all the ingredients —except for the celery— to make chicken noodle soup. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I dragged myself to the kitchen, drank some herbal tea with lots of sugar in it for energy, and put together the soup. Now I don't know id it was the flu that had simply ran its course or it was my soup, but the next day I woke up feeling great. And as for Amsterdam, I swear I'm going to go in the spring.


CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP
Adapted from Cooking Light

• 48 oz. chicken broth
  1  tablespoon  olive oil
  1/2  cup  chopped onion
  1/2  cup  green peas
  1/2  teaspoon  salt
  1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
  1  medium carrot, chopped
  6  ounces  fusilli pasta
  2 1/2  cups  shredded skinless, boneless rotisserie chicken breast (I didn’t have any, so I cooked and shredded my own chicken)
  2  tablespoons  chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
  
  
  Warm up broth in a large sauce pan.
  While broth heats, heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add onion, green peas, salt, pepper, and carrot; sauté 3 minutes or until almost tender, stirring frequently. Add to hot broth and stir in pasta; bring to a boil. Cook 7 minutes or until pasta is almost al dente. Stir in chicken; cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Stir in parsley

Classic herbed roasted turkey

So yesterday I had my first "European" Thanksgiving in a long time and, let me tell you, it was a blast. I had never hosted a dinner party for sixteen people before. It was hard but it was fun and everyone was so helpful we didn't have any big problems. Well, except the fact that I forgot to serve my chestnut soup I had worked so hard to make... guess I'll be eating a lot of it in the next few days. 

Other than that we all gathered around the dinner table and we ate, and ate, and ate

. 

As I watched my guests chowing down turkey, mashed potatoes, roasted cauliflower, stuffing and whatever else they could get their hands on, I realized that this year I have many things to be thankful for. There's the old friends I can now see on a regular basis without having to cross an ocean. There's the new friends that welcomed me into their lives. There has been a few wonderful trips —Madrid, Barcelona and the Amalfi Coast come to mind— and the plan to take a few great ones in the near future. There's the fact that this year I didn't break my knee while cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I mean, I want to take that one as a good omen. There's snow coming this way and there's ski trips and snowmen and hot mulled wine and all the wonderful wintery things I've missed so much in the past nine years. 

So yes, I have a lot to be thankful for and only a few things that I seriously need to change in my life. But I'm content. And calm. Which, if you know me well, you'll know it doesn't happen very often. 

CLASSIC HERBED TURKEY 

• Adapted from Cooking Light
• 
  
• 1  (12-pound) fresh or frozen turkey, thawed
• 4  thyme sprigs
• 4  sage leaves
• 4  garlic cloves
• 1  medium onion, quartered
• 4 tablespoons  butter, softened
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  kosher salt
• 3/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 1  cup  chicken broth

Preheat oven to 500°.

To prepare the turkey, remove giblets and neck from turkey; reserve for gravy. Trim excess fat. Stuff body cavity with 4 thyme sprigs, sage leaves, garlic, and medium onion. Tie legs together with kitchen string.

Starting at neck cavity, loosen skin from breast and drumsticks by inserting fingers, gently pushing between skin and meat. Combine butter, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper. Rub butter mixture under loosened skin over breast and drumsticks. Lift wing tips up and over back; tuck under turkey. Pour 1 cup water in bottom of a roasting pan. Place roasting rack in pan. Arrange turkey, breast side up, on roasting rack. Bake at 500° for 30 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 350° (do not remove turkey from oven).

Bake turkey at 350° for 1 1/2 hours or until a thermometer inserted into meaty part of thigh registers 165°. (Shield turkey with foil if it browns too quickly.) Remove turkey from the oven; let stand 20 minutes. 

Salmon with mustard and dill

 

I don't know what's wrong with me and Sundays. Unlike most people, I've never liked them. Even as child, I used to think Sundays had a certain halo of sadness hovering over them, a halo that said 'the weekend is over'. One that also said 'you should do something and have fun today, before the new week starts'. But somehow I never found anything fun or exciting to do on Sundays and dreaded the Sunday boredom much more than the 'back to the grind' routine of any given Monday.

What can I say? I've always been a weird child like that, a child that hated Sundays and preferred books to tv. Especially on Sundays. TV on Sundays, in Italy, is worse than the plague. It must be avoided at all costs. 

As a teen and a 20-something I kept quiet about my not liking Sundays, but kept not liking them all the same. I didn't like them for different reasons than those of my childhood. Or, maybe, I should say that some new reasons piled up, high on top of the already existing ones. The reasons were plentiful. Sundays come after Saturday nights and Saturday nights always bore expectations of the great things that could have happened, but never delivered. At least not to me. I usually spent Sundays thinking about the boy I happened to like at the time kissing some other girl at the party or bar or whatever I had been at the night before. 

Now that I'm —do I dare say it?— almost 30, I still spend my Sundays in a similar fashion. I sit around and waste a perfectly good day thinking of what happened or not happened on Saturday night, or what happened or not happened in my 20s.

What does all of this have to do with salmon and dill, you might be wondering by now? Absolutely nothing. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that the two things are somehow related, because they are not. And don't let my sour mood deter you from trying this recipe, because it's absolutely amazing and yet very simple to assemble. I found it on my friend Emily's blog, which you should check out if you haven't yet. The only thing I changed from the original recipe is that I used plain white yogurt instead of sour cream because sour cream is not readily available here in Italy, but that's a substitution I've made several times successfully, so feel free to use either one. 

SALMON WITH MUSTARD AND DILL SAUCE

(Adapted from Emily's recipe)

1 cup plain yogurt

1/3 cup chopped fresh dill

3 tablespoons finely chopped onion

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 1/2 pound center-cut salmon filet with skin

2 teaspoons minced garlic

Whisk yogurt, dill, onion, garlic and mustard in small bowl to blend. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.

Lightly oil baking sheet. Place salmon, skin side down, on prepared sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and spread with 1/3 cup of the dill and mustard sauce.

Bake salmon until just opaque in the center, about 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Serve with remaining sauce.

Chicken cakes with spicy horseradish sauce

 

Remember the good ol' days when I lived in Florida and every other recipe I posted involved chicken? Well, those days are long gone. Not only because I haven't breathed Florida air since April 22nd, but most of all —and this is the tidbit of news that may shock some of you— I haven't eaten any chicken since that very same day.

Crazy, right?

Well, yes and no.

To most Americans, and to my pre-April 22nd self, it certainly sounds crazy.I mean, chicken is easy. Cheap. Even nutritious. In one word, it's a staple.

Well, not so much in Italy. Nobody eats chicken regularly here, other than the odd roasted chicken on Sundays. Other than that, Italians do not enjoy and do not serve chicken as often as Americans do. Mention a chicken dish to a random Italian guy, my dad for instance, and he'll scoff. The reasons are many, but most of them have something to do with the fact that chicken itself is not the most flavorful of meats and, to make it good, you have to season the shit out of it or marinate it or cover it in sauce. Which makes most Italians shrug and say: Why don;t you eat something that is good without all these things then? 

What can I say? Every population has its obsessions, most of which are food related, especially when it comes to Italians. But that explains why I never ate the stuff growing up and, I'm guessing, that's why ever since I moved back here I haven't eaten it anymore.

Except that, a few nights ago, I was going through the only cookbook I took with me from Florida —a four pounder, hard cover version of "The Essential Dinner Tonight" by Cooking Light that caused me a lot of backache while I was transporting it in my backpack across airports and oceans— and I started recognizing all these chicken recipes that Tommy and I have loved back when I lived in Florida. And I don't know if it's the sentimental factor playing a big part in this (it most certainly is, since I've been very sentimental lately), but I've found myself longing for chicken.

I know. If my dad and/or the Italian government read this, they will disown me and probably burn my passport. 

Still, I since I was longing for a piece of freaking chicken breast cooked any freaking way, I went to the local Swiss grocery store, called Coop. Yes, like a chicken coop. Only it actually means co-op. But I digress. I went into the Coop and looked for chicken breast, knowing that all of the sudden I could no longer live without a piece of pollo. Well, boys and girls, let me tell you one thing. The Swiss must be very proud of their chickens, because to buy a mere 9 ounces of chicken breast I had to shell out 9 Swiss francs, which is about $8.50. But I was on a mission, so I whipped out my (un)trusty AmEx and came home with my loot, which I turned into one of my all-time favorite recipes: chicken cakes with spicy horseradish sauce. 

And although I call it "all time", by now you all must know that this is not a recipe from my childhood, since —to this day— whenever I tell my parents I'm having chicken for dinner, they laugh and say "we're sorry".

Oh, well. To those of you who don't have a problem with chicken, I highly recommend this recipe: it's tasty and it's moist. And Dad, in case you're reading this, it makes the chicken so good you don't even know you are having chicken.

CHICKEN CAKES WITH SPICY HORSERADISH SAUCE

Adapted from Cooking Light

Serves 4

1 cup bread crumbs

1  pound  skinless, boneless chicken breast

1/4  cup  chopped fresh chives

3  tablespoons  low-fat plain yogurt

1  teaspoon  Cajun seasoning

1/4  teaspoon  salt

2  large egg whites

2  teaspoons oil 

For the sauce:

  

2  tablespoons  low-fat yogurt

2  teaspoons  prepared horseradish

1  teaspoon  minced garlic

1/8  teaspoon  salt 

To prepare cakes, place chicken in food processor and pulse until ground. Combine chicken, chives, 3 tablespoons yogurt and seasoning, 1/4 teaspoon salt, egg whites, and breadcrumbs in a medium bowl; mix well.

Divide mixture into 8 equal portions, shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add patties; cook 7 minutes on each side or until done.

To prepare sauce, combine 2 tablespoons yogurt and remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Serve with cakes.

Oven "fried" chicken with honey mustard sauce

I have a question for you all: how do you pack for a trip that is longer than a year? I have already figured out how to take my winter clothes and shoes with me (in the trunk of my car, which is going to be shipped from Miami to Genoa at the end of the month). The problem is, there is still a lot in my closet that doesn't fall in the categories above —winter clothes and shoes. Stuff like summer clothes, bathing suits, summer shoes... handbags, belts... and more. Normally I'm a firm believer in packing light —I've learned a long time ago that you usually end up using a third of the clothes you take with you on  any given trip— but when you are moving to another continent this philosophy kinda goes out the window. Seriously: how do they expect your whole life to weigh 50 pounds or less? The least airlines could do is offer a moving special. Or a hoarder special. Or both. Instead they want to charge you $75 for each additional bag, which I'm so not going to pay. So that's it. Everything —actually: everything I own that combined weighs 50 pounds or less— has to fit in one bag. In my carry on backpack I'll have to stuff my laptop and some reading material that isn't too heavy (good luck with that, right?), while my "other" carry on will be the cat who, I'm sure, will make this whole travel experience even more pleasant. And then they wonder why I wake up in a panic in the middle of the night...

Anyways, all this to say —once again— that I have a great reason for not having posted much on this blog lately. Because I'm not cooking much and when I do, I'm too distracted to cook something worth blogging about. But I promise, once I'm there the posts will flow, both about wonderful recipes and about my travels. In the mean time, here's a favorite of mine which, I suspect, I won't be able to make anymore once I'm in Europe, the reason being that I think they don't sell honey mustard dressing over there. So, unless I make my own, no more oven "fried" chicken with honey mustard sauce for me!

OVEN "FRIED" CHICKEN WITH HONEY MUSTARD SAUCE

Adapted from the Weight Watchers Complete Cookbook
Serves 2 or 3

3 chicken breast halves, boneless and skinless
3/4 cup honey mustard dressing
1 tablespoon minced fresh dill
3 scallions, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
1 cup crumbled corn flakes
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 425F.

In a shallow bowl mix the honey mustard dressing, scallions and dill. Season with salt and pepper to taste and place the corn flake crumbs in a small dish.

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dip each breast in the dressing, turning to coat well. Shake off excess. Reserve extra dressing. Dredge into crumbs and place in a baking pan coated with cooking spray.  Cook in preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until crust looks crunchy and done. Drizzle with reserved dressing and serve immediately.

Tommy's famous "reuben" sandwich

Reuben sandwiches are one of those things I never knew existed growing up in Italy. First of all, most Italian sandwiches, panini, are commonly made with two or three ingredients, and generally none of them are mustards or sauces. Then there's also the fact that corned beef isn't readily available in Italy, which makes making reuben sandwiches kind of difficult.

So when I moved to the US in 2001 there were all these news sandwiches looking up at me from menus, sandwiches with names that I didn't recognize like club, French dip and, of course, Reuben. Who the hell was Reuben, I asked? No one knew. Apparently a man named Reuben Kulakofsky, a Lithuanian-born, Jewish grocer from Nebraska invented it as part of a group effort by members of Kulakofsky's weekly poker game on the1920s. One of the poker players, a man named Schimmel, owned a local hotel and put the sandwich on the hotel's restaurant menu, making it famous —first locally, later nationally. Of course, as with every good food-related myth, there's other versions of the story. Some others believe that the reuben's creator was Arnold Reuben, the German-Jewish owner of the now defunct Reuben's Delicatessen in New York, who would started making the sandwich around 1914. There's many other stories, of course, which I won't bore you with: the point is Reuben sandwiches have been around for about a century and they are a great way to get rid of left over corned beef.

Since we had a ton of corned beef leftover from our belated St. Paddy's celebration, Tommy decided to show me how a good Reuben sandwich is made, although because we are also trying to cook out of our pantry before we move to Europe, we made our sandwiches with —brace your selves— white bread. Which I know is almost sacrilegious, but that's what we had. And to be honest, buying a whole loaf of rye just to make two sandwiches would be crazy. And... I don't like rye. There. I said it. So on to the recipe, shall we?

"REUBEN" SANDWICHES

Makes two sandwiches

4 slices of your bread of choice
Butter
Corned beef
Thousand island dressing
4 tablespoons sauerkraut

Butter each bread slice on one side and toast under the broiler or in a panini press. In the mean time, warm up the sauerkraut in a small pan. When bread is lightly toasted and butter has melted, add corned beef, sauerkraut and drizzle with dressing. Cover with other slice of bread and press for a minute. Cut in half and enjoy.

Spicy pasta bake

I'm sure you've all had a bad day, here and there. Maybe even a bad week. Shit happens. No big deal, right? Right. Well, I guess I'm having a bad-few-months. First I break my knee. Then I get laid off. Then, last night, I get an e-mail from Columbia University saying thanks for your interest, but we are not accepting you into our journalism program. Alright. It kinda made me feel like the clumsy kid who gets picked last when the cool kids are making teams. It also made me laugh out loud for a few seconds —a weird reaction I tend to have whenever something sucky happens to me. And then, after I was done with my brief auto-commiseration pity party, I thought it wasn't all that bad. I guess things come in threes, so this should be it. Or at least I'm hoping so, because really, why is the universe conspiring against me?

Unless...

Unless, maybe, said universe is conspiring towards greater things. Like moving to Europe. Which, for those who don't know it yet, is the next step. A big step. A huge step. I was born and raised there, but haven't lived there for almost 10 years. And all of the sudden I know that sometime in late April I'll grab my suitcase and a bunch of random crap I can't live without and propel myself into my next adventure. It's exhilarating and scary at the same time. Which, I guess, is why I've been finding myself cooking lots of comfort classics —dishes that make me feel warm and cozy and happy even when life seems to be spinning out of control at the speed of light all around me. I've also started cooking strictly out of the freezer and pantry, buying only perishables and using them right away. Emptying the fridge, the freezer and the pantry is a challange, but it's also going to be fun. Kind of like an episode of Iron Chef, with the bonus that no one will critique my food. This pasta bake is great both because it definitely falls into the comfort food category and because it made me get rid of the last of my elbow macaroni (which I use only to make this dish!), the last of my carrots, some of my canned tomatoes and random cheeses I had laying around the snack drawer.

Oh, yeah, and it's delicious.

SPICY PASTA BAKE
Adapted from Cooking Light

4 ounces small elbow macaroni
Cooking spray
1  cup  chopped onion
1  cup chopped carrot
2  teaspoons garlic
1  pound  lean ground sirloin
1  cup  tomato sauce
Crushed red pepper
Salt and pepper
1  cup  milk
2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
1/8  teaspoon  ground nutmeg
6 ounces sharp cheddar cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350°.
Cook pasta according to the package directions, drain. Lightly coat pasta with cooking spray.

Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion and carrot, and sauté 4 minutes. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add ground beef, season with salt and pepper; cook 5 minutes or until browned, stirring to crumble. Add tomato sauce, season with salt, pepper and crushed red pepper. Cook for 2 minutes or until most of liquid evaporates.
Add pasta to beef mixture in pan, stirring to combine. Spoon pasta mixture into an 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

Place milk, flour, nutmeg, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan; stir with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat 2 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly with a whisk. Add cheese, stirring until smooth. Pour cheese mixture over pasta mixture; stir. Sprinkle evenly with grated cheese. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Shrimp and sausage gumbo

I've never been to New Orleans. I was supposed to go in September, but then we decided to put off the trip a couple of months. I was supposed to go in December, but I went and broke my kneecap, which kinda put a dent in our travel plans. And now that I've lost my job, it looks like the only traveling I'll be doing any time soon will be the big moving to Europe thing. For the time being, the closest that I'll get to the Big Easy is eating gumbo, which I make with a recipe that isn't traditional at all.

So even when it comes to cooking I'm not getting any closer to New Orleans. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Said recipe comes from a Weight Watchers cookbook, of all places, but let me tell you: don't let this tidbit of information scare you away. It's a solid, good recipe and to be honest it doesn't feel or taste like a low calorie, low fat recipe at all. The broth is rich and aromatic, the vegetables add substance and, most of all, I doubled the amount of sausage the recipe called for, so there. No wonder it didn't taste low fat...

SHRIMP AND SAUSAGE GUMBO

Adapted from the Weight Watchers Complete Cookbook

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 orange bell pepper, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 large shallot, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup sliced okra
1 teaspoon thyme
1 bay leaf
Cayenne pepper, to taste
1/2 cup long-grain rice
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 hot Italian sausage links

In a large Dutch oven, heat up the oil, add the sausage and stir to crumble. Cook for a couple of minutes. Add bell pepper, celery, garlic and shallot and cook for about 5 minutes, until tender. Stir in the tomatoes, broth, okra, thyme, bay leaf and cayenne pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Stir in the rice, cover and simmer for another 15 minutes. Add shrimp and cook for another 5 minutes or until done. Remove bay leaf.

Spicy tuna melts

I guess the biggest thing that hit me when I lost my job was the fact that one moment I was a writer and the next I wasn't one anymore. See, it wasn't the money or the humiliation —it was more the fact that for over three years I had defined myself by what I was doing, which was basically writing all day, everyday. And then, after a couple of days, it hit me.

I still am a writer.

I write this blog. I'm writing a novel. And, soon, I'll be writing for other publications. So I really didn't need my job to define who I am. It may seem obvious to most, but to me it wasn't until I started thinking about the possibilities that lay before me. I can now do and be whatever I want. I can travel. I can work for multiple organizations and publications. I don't have to sit in an office for a pre-set amount of hours each week. I can decide to make my own mayo to make tuna melts for lunch which, so far, is the only thing I've done in my new and improved life. But hey, one has to start somewhere, right?

SPICY TUNA MELTS

Serves 2

2 English muffins, cut in half and toasted
1 can tuna
1/2 cup of mayo
2 tablespoons capers
1/2 onion, minced
1 jalapeno, minced
Salt and pepper
1 tomato, sliced
4 slices of your favorite cheese

Mix tuna, mayo, capers, onion and jalapeno, and season with salt and pepper.
Divide mixture evenly over the four muffin halves, top with a slice of tomato, season with salt and pepper and top with cheese.
Place under the broiler for 3 or 4 minutes, until cheese is bubbly.

Spicy pork chili

So here's the thing: I couldn't care less about football or Superbowl. I'll be brutally honest with you: I find the game too long and not packed enough with action to hold my interest and, until yesterday, I was convinced -hopeful, really- that Superbowl Sunday was today. I say hopeful because after Superbowl is over there is a few months  of peace and quiet when I don't have to listen to football talk. Not that anyone would directly talk to me about football, but you know, they talk loud enough for me to hear. And if they are not talking they are updating their Facebook status with all-caps nonsense about the Colts or whoever else could make it to Superbowl.

One thing I like about Superbowl is the chili-eating aspect of it because chili happens to be one of my favorite dishes. Besides the fact that I love soupy meals, I like the fact that everyone makes chili in a different way and, at least when it comes to food, I will never get bored at a Superbowl party. I have three or four favorite chili recipes so far -this particular one is the latest addition. It's from -yet again- the Jan./Feb. issue of Cooking Light and it's made with pork instead of beef. I had to change the recipe a little bit, mostly because I forgot to buy some of the ingredients, but it turned out amazing: the ham hock gives it a wonderfully smoky flavor and the Mexican hot sauce delivers a nice kick.

SPICY PORK CHILI

Cooking spray

2  pounds  ground pork

3  cups  chopped onion

1  chopped green bell pepper

3  garlic cloves, minced

3  tablespoons  tomato paste

1  cup beer

Salt

3  tablespoons  chili powder

1  tablespoon  ground cumin

2  teaspoons  dried oregano

3/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper

6  tomatillos, quartered

2  bay leaves

2  (14 1/2-ounce) cans plum tomatoes, undrained and chopped

1  (15-ounce) can red kidney beans, drained

1  (7 3/4-ounce) can Mexican hot-style tomato sauce

1  smoked ham hock (about 8 ounces)

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add ground pork to pan, season with salt and pepper to taste; cook 5 minutes or until browned, stirring to slightly crumble. Drain well. Transfer pork to an electric slow cooker.

Recoat pan with cooking spray. Add onion and bell pepper; sauté 8 minutes, stirring frequently. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add tomato paste; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in beer; cook 1 minute. Transfer onion mixture to slow cooker. Add salt, chili powder, and next 9 ingredients (through ham hock) to slow cooker. Cover and cook on HIGH 5 hours. Remove bay leaves and ham hock; discard.

Serve with fresh cilantro, chopped green onions, or sour cream if desired.

Gingerbread muffins

Is it finally Friday? I don't know about you, but this week -instead of feeling shorter because of the holiday- felt longer. It must have something to do with the fact that the wait is killing me already. Wait for what, you might ask? I'm not going to say it because I'm superstitious like that. Let's just say that is something really important, something that I've been dreaming of for a while and something that, unfortunately, doesn't depend on me in the slightest way. All that I could do, "my part", is done. And now I have to wait until the end of March to receive an answer. I know, right? If I'm already going crazy on January 22, can you imagine what my state will be on, say, March 15? Ugh. Better not think about it.

But I digress. Since it's Friday, it means that I'm publishing a recipe I've learned from another great food blog: The Ungourmet. A while ago, Kim posted a wonderful recipe to make gingerbread loaves with icing and, since I didn't have mini pans and I don't much care for icing, I thought: Why not make it into muffins? It was quite the good idea, even if I say so myself. They turned out packed with gingery spiceness, the perfect match to my morning coffee. Even Tommy, who usually only praises banana nut muffins said that these were a great alternative. And thank God for that, because it's freaking banana season here in Florida and, to be honest, if I eat another banana I'll have a meltdown.

GINGERBREAD MUFFINS

(Adapted from The Ungourmet)
Makes 12 muffins

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup raisins
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tsp fresh minced ginger
1 egg

In a bowl combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, raisins, cranberries and almonds.

Place butter in a large bowl and using an electric mixer, beat until creamy. Add the molasses, water, ginger, and egg. Mix to combine. Add the flour mixture and beat until well combined.

Divide evenly into a muffin pan. Placepan into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Pork chops with sweet potatoes, apples and raisins

This morning I went to the farmer's market and, as predicted, it was a real zoo. And may I ask what the hell is wrong with pushy old people that practically walk over you to get their hands on the tomatoes? I mean, geeze! I tried to get to the tomatoes for about five minutes and eventually gave up because these old ladies just wouldn't decide which ones to choose and in the process kept elbowing me to keep me from reaching the case. The funny thing is that -due to the temperatures in the 20s and 30s we experienced at night for a couple of weeks- the produce at the farmer's market today looked pretty crappy. Regardless of that, these ladies were acting as if they had never seen better tomatoes in their life -so I let them have them, while I stocked up on squashes, onions and potatoes.

So it looks that this winter we won't be having the usual beautiful, tasty tomatoes and that we'll have to survive on recipes that were clearly not intended for Florida. These pork chops are a perfect example. I found the recipe in Susan Branch's "Heart of the home", a collection of recipes from Martha's Vineyard. Of course I changed it a bit but that with me it's a given.

PORK CHOPS WITH SWEET POTATOES, APPLES AND RAISINS
Serves 6

6 large sweet potatoes
6 bone-in pork chops
Salt and pepper
6 red apples
1 cup raisins
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Butter
1 onion, minced
3 ribs of celery, minced
2 cups breadcrumbs or cubed bread (I used cubed bread)

Preheat oven to 400F.

Peel and cut the potatoes in large chunks, then boil them for about twenty minutes. Heat a little oil in a pan, season chops with sal and pepper and brown them on both sides in the oil -about two minutes per side. Remove from pan and with a sharp knife cut a deep slit in the side of each chop.

To make stuffing melt a little butter in a pan, cook onion and celery in it until soft, seasonw with salt and pepper and add breadcrumbs or cubed bread. Fill each chop with stuffing.

Place stuffed chops and sweet potatoes in a baking pan. Halve and core the apples and place them around the chops. Sprinkle with raisins. Sprinkle apples with cinnamon and season the whole dish with salt and pepper. Cover the pan with foil and cook for about 30-40 minutes.

Homemade granola

For work reasons (i.e. we received a memo warmly inviting us to do so) I had to open a Twitter account and, against my nature and better judgment, I tweeted (or tweetered?) all summer and did my best to become a good little tweeter. Well, besides the fact that I failed miserably, I also discovered several things about Twitter that annoyed me beyond belief. One of them was Follow Fridays. For those of you who are lucky enough not to know what Follow Fridays are, they are this day-long torture where people you follow announce to everyone who they follow, so every other post looks like this:
FF#@sweetiepie, @bigdude, @kingofthemorons, @franny_loves_joey... and so on. Like, you know, someone cares. I have nothing against publicizing or letting people know about a good product, or book, or blog, but what's the point in publicizing something without saying what the hell it is?

So here's the thing, I decided to do something slightly more useful and tell you about a great recipe I've found on a great blog -in case you don't read it already you should start doing so now.

HOMAMADE GRANOLA
Adapted from The Kitchen Witch
(who adapted it from Bon Appetit)

4 cups toasted whole grain cereal
3 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup hazelnuts
1 cup honey
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup mixed dried fruit (I used raisins, golden raisins, cranberries, pineapple, apples and cherries)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 275.

Mix cereal, oats, nuts, almonds and hazelnuts in large bowl.

Bring honey and oil just to boil in a small saucepan; drizzle over cereal mixture and toss to coat.

Spread mixture onto a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake until golden brown and dry, stirring every 15 minutes, about 1 hour 30 minutes. Scatter dried fruit over. Sprinkle cinnamon over and toss to incorporate evenly. Cool granola completely in pan on rack, stirring occasionally to prevent clumping.

Can be made 2 weeks ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.

Oysters Rockefeller

I've been on an oyster kick lately. I've been ordering raw ones like crazy while I was in Key West and have been lucky enough to go to an oyster party the other night where I had amazingly plump oysters cooked on the grill. My favorite way to cook and eat oysters, though, is making Rockefellers. I used to order them in restaurants all the time and although most were good, I always thought they could be better. See, I'm picky about my oysters Rockefeller. A purist. Don't put any Hollandaise on them. And don't smother them in cheese. I like to taste the actual oysters, the spinach, the tabasco. So I went through my cookbooks and found a recipe that sounded authentic and delicious in a book called "America the beautiful". Once I made them that first time I was hooked, and so was my boyfriend and family. They are easy to make and they are delicious -perfect for a dinner party or for a holiday buffet. The hardest part is schuking them, but if you have the right tool I've discovered that even that is a breeze.

OYSTERS ROCKEFELLER

24 fresh oysters, in their shell
10 ounce brick frozen chopped spinach
2 green onions
1 shallot
1 stalk celery
1/3 cup dry vermouth
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
Tabasco or other hot sauce, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
A box of rock salt

Mince the shallot, green onion and celery and sautee them in a little butter until crisp tender. Add thawed out spinach, season with salt and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes. Transfer vegetable mixture in a blender or food processor and pulse until creamy. Add vermouth, hot sauce to taste and bread crumbs. Stir until blended.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Place rock salt in a thin layer in a baking dish (or two, if your baking dish isn't big enough to accomodate all the oysters). Open oysters, discard empty half shell, and place oysters on their shell over the bed of salt. Spoon a tabelspoon of spinach mixture over each oyster. Sprinkle with cheese. Cook for 10 minutes in preheated oven and serve immedietly.

Spiced almonds

I woke up this morning to find out that the cat, Ernie the terrible, had decided to take a few ornaments down from the Christmas tree and put them on couch. Apparently he thinks that they look much better there because he has been doing this every night since we put up the Christmas tree on Sunday. I also woke up to find out that my broken knee isn't getting any better -in fact it feels like it's getting worse. And since I also feel kinda lonely and bored I decided to do two things: make Christmas presents and moan and complain here on the blog. As The Kitchen Witch pointed out in one of her recent posts "This blogging stuff is kind of cool. I get to bitch to a much wider audience. It's very cathartic."

She's right. And she's a wonderful writer, so if you haven't done so yet, check out her blog.

Now, on with the complaining. I have just listened to a voicemail message that made me want to throw the phone out of the window. This morning I'm in such a grouchy mood I'm screening calls. All of them. So when my not-so-dear boyfriend called, I didn't pick up. Which is good, I guess, since the message alone made me mad enough to consider throwing a $300 iPhone out of the window. He was supposed to come home Monday night, but that quickly became Tuesday. Which is fine. I'm having such a great time sitting here with my broken leg, trying to keep the cat out of the Christmas tree! In the mean time he's in Key West, "working" on a boat and basically being on vacation. He's so busy he can't even bother to call, Sunday or Monday, and when he finally calls on Tuesday is to ask me if it's ok for him to come on Wednesday -today- by noon. Which, of course, is a retorical question, since it's more than clear that he has already made up his mind. Whatever. What threw me over the edge is the message I just listened to. At noon he calls to tell me that he's not even leaving for another couple of hours, which means that maybe -if he leaves on time, if there is no traffic, if he never stops to pee or get gas- he'll be home at 8 p.m.

By then I'll have somehow carted my ass to an oyster party -180 pounds of oysters... can you imagine that?- bring my spiced almonds as a gift. See? There was a connection between the bitching and the recipe!

SPICED ALMONDS
(adapeted from Cooking Light)

1 tablespoon water
1 large egg white
1 pound raw, unblanched almonds
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon Spanish smoked paprika
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon chili powder

Preheat oven to 300°.

Combine 1 tablespoon water and egg white in a large bowl; stir with a whisk until foamy. Add almonds; toss well to coat. Place almonds in a colander, and drain 5 minutes.

Combine almonds, sugar, and next 5 ingredients (through chili powder) in a large bowl; toss to coat. Spread almond mixture in a single layer on a jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 300° for 15 minutes. Stir almond mixture; reduce oven temperature to 275°. Bake an additional 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Remove from oven; cool 5 minutes. Break apart any clusters. Cool completely.