We are probably one of the last households to receive and read three daily newspapers. One of the best things about the NY Times and the Boston Globe are the Wednesday food sections. Sometimes the recipes call for difficult (read drive 80 miles to get ingredients) or sound like a lot of work and with 30 ingredients (mostly vegetarian), but last week had a couple of seasonal recipes that sounded like something I might try, and try I did.
From the Times, I made the Cucumber and Buttermilk Soup with Sourdough Croutons. Quick, Flavorful No-Cook Soup It's a lovely green color and had a pleasant taste before chilling. From the Globe I got Orzo salad with green beans, tomatoes and olives. Truth be told, we are eating the croutons on hand, whatever their flavor. Yummy orzo salad recipe
Our tiny garden has produced a bounty of cukes, and naturally a recipe where I needed two pounds (!) was welcome. Buttermilk and avocados were on sale, and the herbs were in the garden, too. This was a no-brainer.
The salad uses green beans and tomatoes, always a good combo, and I had a package of orzo. Olives from the olive bar for flavor and that elegant little touch of black. Sweet onion also on sale. Basil and mint in the garden. This looks like a winning vegetarian meal. Easy, great for a hot evening, an no list of 27 ingredients or time-consuming cooking.
The Times and the Globe today had tributes to Julia Child on the occasion of her 100th birthday. I have her epic cookbooks, and always had a favorite veal stew that I made with fresh tomatoes every summer. Caflouti is a favorite dessert in our house, easy to make, tasty and not a diet-buster. The Times has a yummy roast pork recipe from Julia that I'll make tomorrow for family company.
The great thing about the recipes in the newspaper is that they come to you. No wracking of brain, no browsing through cookbooks (a pleasant activity, nonetheless). Ingredients are usually seasonal. By and large prep is not too difficult. Just screen out those too time-consuming, weird or that don't really sound all that good. You'll recognize them immediately. They call for lime leaves and oddball stuff. Or weird combos like kale and squash. Butternut squash is fine for soup or a vegetable but I get fatigued seeing it in the most outre combinations. Now I never tire of green bean recipes! Yay.
I'll do photos tomorrow, so you can judge for yourself. We had more chicken pesto pasta salad with tomatoes this week. My own recipe, intuited many years ago from Rebecca's Cafe in Kendal Square, Cambridge. That was one dynamite dish.
Grapeshot
Showing posts with label Chicken Pesto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicken Pesto. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Pesto Alla Genovese
I've been using the pesto recipe below ever since I began growing my own basil. It's excellent, and why spend $4.95 for half as much when this only costs a couple dollars to make, including the pine nuts, cheese and olive oil.
My favorite pesto recipe is "chicken pesto," which Bertucci's had as part of their antipasto platter in days of yore. The dish consists of chunks of white meat chicken dressed with pesto. Haven't seen it for years.
Another idea I got from Rebecca's in Kendall Square was to mix the chicken pesto with bow tie pasta and fresh tomatoes for a luncheon/dinner meal. Good. Good. Good. Add pesto according to taste.
Pesto all Genovese - makes 1 1/2- 2 cups
Ingredients: 1 cups fresh basil, leaves only packed and lightly chopped. (I skip this chopping).
1 t. kosher salt
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
1-2 t. finely chopped garlic (this year it's home grown, like the basil)
2 T. finely chopped pine nuts (can sub. walnuts)
1 to 1 1/2 cups olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated imported sardo, romano or Parmesan cheese.
Process: in a blender, combine basil, salt, pepper, garlic, pie nuts and 1 cup olive oil. Blend at high speed, stopping to push the herbs down with a rubber spatula.
The sauce should be thin enough to run off the spatula easily. It it's too thick, blend in more olive oil. Transfer the sauce to a bowl and stir in the grated cheese.
The chicken pesto works as part of a antipasto or alone as a light dinner with a salad and Italian bread. The pesto can be thinned further by mixing a little pasta cooking water with it.
My favorite pesto recipe is "chicken pesto," which Bertucci's had as part of their antipasto platter in days of yore. The dish consists of chunks of white meat chicken dressed with pesto. Haven't seen it for years.
Another idea I got from Rebecca's in Kendall Square was to mix the chicken pesto with bow tie pasta and fresh tomatoes for a luncheon/dinner meal. Good. Good. Good. Add pesto according to taste.
Pesto all Genovese - makes 1 1/2- 2 cups
Ingredients: 1 cups fresh basil, leaves only packed and lightly chopped. (I skip this chopping).
1 t. kosher salt
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
1-2 t. finely chopped garlic (this year it's home grown, like the basil)
2 T. finely chopped pine nuts (can sub. walnuts)
1 to 1 1/2 cups olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated imported sardo, romano or Parmesan cheese.
Process: in a blender, combine basil, salt, pepper, garlic, pie nuts and 1 cup olive oil. Blend at high speed, stopping to push the herbs down with a rubber spatula.
The sauce should be thin enough to run off the spatula easily. It it's too thick, blend in more olive oil. Transfer the sauce to a bowl and stir in the grated cheese.
The chicken pesto works as part of a antipasto or alone as a light dinner with a salad and Italian bread. The pesto can be thinned further by mixing a little pasta cooking water with it.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Antipasto
We have been working our way thru the leftovers all week. Tomorrow we'll have a typical German dinner of cold meats and cheese.After that it's just a bit to nosh on.
From the top: broccoli, red pepper, proscuitto, mushrooms, salami, cheese, chicken pesto, more salami, mozzarella, salami, cheese,artichoke hearts, mortadella, sopressata, olives and salata ricotta and somewhere there's eggplant. And raddicchio. Viva Italia!
The runner belonged to my mother. We had a second platter as large as this. Would be good fare for a cocktail party, and practically no work.
Hell, I think I'm going to go upstairs and do a quick raid on the fridge. Bad Grapeshot!
Bad!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Food, Food and More Food, Even Cow Food
We love the food network, the cleavage barers, the plump ones, the southerners, the northerners. Even Significant Other will sit and watch. Maybe even learn something.
We had a dinner party last night for some of my old colleagues from IT days, and spouses. We began with an antipasto to die for.I pulled out all the stops, with a trip to the Wasik's cheese shop in Wellesley, for Swiss Emmental, Parmigiano from Parma, grated to powder, Insalata Ricotta, and a couple of Italian cheese I substitued for Provlone and Fontina. Soft cheeses, with lots of flavor.The parmesan and the emmental were for the main course, more of that later.
Then I hurried to Roche brothers for fresh mozzarella, the little balls, not the big ones. Bought kalamata olives, and some mushrooms in a vinaigrette, canned artichoke hearts, a big eggplant, fresh broccoli and a red pepper. Salami, Sopressata, Mortadella, proscuitto and fresh chicken breast.Grilled the eggplant in a grill pan, everything coated with olive oil, then sprinkled it with hot pepper flakes. Broiled the red pepper, and steamed the broccoli. I hied myself into the garden for fresh basil, and made a half recipe of pesto genovese, which is the world's best pesto and takes mere minutes in a blender. Substituted almonds for pine nuts with no loss of quality. I mix some pesto into the now poached chicken breast cut into bite size pieces.
The chicken pesto used to be on the antipasto menu of a big Boston chain, Bertucci's, but they seem to have discarded it, but I figured out how to make it, so no big deal. I lined one platter with red leaf lettuce and the other with raddicchio, and arranged the antipasto on the platters. Not only was it scrumptious, it looked like a million dollars, and the effort was minimal.
Way back when I was a kid, my mom made a wonderful casserole of chicken, cheese, pasta and breadcrumbs. Even when I didn't like ANYTHING, I liked that. Found a recipe in Gourmet that served 12, that had most of the same ingredients, but updated from the 50's into more of a well, gourmet creation. Made that, and my god it was beyond belief. Not laborless, understand, but you got a long of bang for two chickens, some cheese, and a pound of imported rigatoni from Ocean State Job Lot. To die for. My mom's recipe was called Huntington Chicken.
Dessert was my mom's (what would we do without good old Mom?) lemon squares, the best ever, and made with fresh lemon juice of course. You don't use UnReal Lemon with all the off flavors and chemicals, do you? For shame. We whipped up some lemon lime ice milk and some fresh strawberry ice cream. The ice cream maker has done yeoman's duty since we figured out how to use it.
The best part, of course, except for seeing dear old friends is the leftovers. What a feast we had for lunch on the antipasto, and the chicken casserole had not deteriorated with age. Au Contraire. So now I'll have to diet all week, but it will have been worth it. One hopes.
We fed the cows the veggie scraps, and I would like to report that they do not at all like and in fact shunned the lettuce and raddichio that had been exposed to oil and vinegar. Acted like it was cow poison. Don't know what that's about. They liked everything else, and scarfed it down. The sweet faced young bull is no longer part of the herd. I knew he was on loan from another herd. He was the rascal who escaped a month or so ago. We'll miss his pleasant disposition and his randiness. Old Mama (Maggie) looks like she's preggars again. Big as a barn, and an odd time to calve. Whatcha gonna do? I dearly love those big creatures.
Onward,
Grapeshot
We had a dinner party last night for some of my old colleagues from IT days, and spouses. We began with an antipasto to die for.I pulled out all the stops, with a trip to the Wasik's cheese shop in Wellesley, for Swiss Emmental, Parmigiano from Parma, grated to powder, Insalata Ricotta, and a couple of Italian cheese I substitued for Provlone and Fontina. Soft cheeses, with lots of flavor.The parmesan and the emmental were for the main course, more of that later.
Then I hurried to Roche brothers for fresh mozzarella, the little balls, not the big ones. Bought kalamata olives, and some mushrooms in a vinaigrette, canned artichoke hearts, a big eggplant, fresh broccoli and a red pepper. Salami, Sopressata, Mortadella, proscuitto and fresh chicken breast.Grilled the eggplant in a grill pan, everything coated with olive oil, then sprinkled it with hot pepper flakes. Broiled the red pepper, and steamed the broccoli. I hied myself into the garden for fresh basil, and made a half recipe of pesto genovese, which is the world's best pesto and takes mere minutes in a blender. Substituted almonds for pine nuts with no loss of quality. I mix some pesto into the now poached chicken breast cut into bite size pieces.
The chicken pesto used to be on the antipasto menu of a big Boston chain, Bertucci's, but they seem to have discarded it, but I figured out how to make it, so no big deal. I lined one platter with red leaf lettuce and the other with raddicchio, and arranged the antipasto on the platters. Not only was it scrumptious, it looked like a million dollars, and the effort was minimal.
Way back when I was a kid, my mom made a wonderful casserole of chicken, cheese, pasta and breadcrumbs. Even when I didn't like ANYTHING, I liked that. Found a recipe in Gourmet that served 12, that had most of the same ingredients, but updated from the 50's into more of a well, gourmet creation. Made that, and my god it was beyond belief. Not laborless, understand, but you got a long of bang for two chickens, some cheese, and a pound of imported rigatoni from Ocean State Job Lot. To die for. My mom's recipe was called Huntington Chicken.
Dessert was my mom's (what would we do without good old Mom?) lemon squares, the best ever, and made with fresh lemon juice of course. You don't use UnReal Lemon with all the off flavors and chemicals, do you? For shame. We whipped up some lemon lime ice milk and some fresh strawberry ice cream. The ice cream maker has done yeoman's duty since we figured out how to use it.
The best part, of course, except for seeing dear old friends is the leftovers. What a feast we had for lunch on the antipasto, and the chicken casserole had not deteriorated with age. Au Contraire. So now I'll have to diet all week, but it will have been worth it. One hopes.
We fed the cows the veggie scraps, and I would like to report that they do not at all like and in fact shunned the lettuce and raddichio that had been exposed to oil and vinegar. Acted like it was cow poison. Don't know what that's about. They liked everything else, and scarfed it down. The sweet faced young bull is no longer part of the herd. I knew he was on loan from another herd. He was the rascal who escaped a month or so ago. We'll miss his pleasant disposition and his randiness. Old Mama (Maggie) looks like she's preggars again. Big as a barn, and an odd time to calve. Whatcha gonna do? I dearly love those big creatures.
Onward,
Grapeshot
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