Cichetti Olives

Thursday the hubs was off work and it was hot, hot, hot here in good 'ole Ohio. We decided it was time for a "snackable" dinner. I took a departure from the international cookbook I've been delving into and made some yummy cichetti olives with the book Great Bar Food at Home  as a starting point. These yummy bites apparently are common in Venetian wine bars.




This book has some interesting small bites you may not typically think of. My departure from the original recipe was to use queen olives stuffed with jalapeno. The recipe suggested olives stuffed with garlic and while I like myself some garlic, I'm not a fan of biting into a whole clove in my olive.

I started out with a jar of my jalapeno olives, some flour, egg, and breadcrumbs. My Kroger carried lots of options for stuffed olives: almond, pimento, garlic, cocktail onion. We also considered trying blue cheese stuffed olives next time to see if they'll hold together. The book gave the great idea of breading these guys in small food storage containers. Just pop on the lid and shake it up!

I chilled these guys for an hour and a half so the breading would get good and stuck on them.

Next, it was into the frying pan for about 3 or 4 minutes. The result was absolutely delish! We dipped them in some light southwest ranch dressing.

We'll certainly be experimenting with different varieties of these little fellas.

Pierogi Party!

Yes, it was a pierogi party at our house. By that I mean that the flour was flyin', I was cookin' it up and my "sous chef" was assisting.

Yeah, he gets pretty nosy when he smells something good.

I will admit outright that I am not a baker. I don't like to bake, mostly because I don't have much patience and exact measuring is tedious to me. Having to make dough for pierogi was a bit anxiety producing for me. It worked out okay for my first time, though. It seemed to be a basic dough of flour, egg, salt, and butter. The 2 inch circles could be cut out with a drinking glass and it was time to get stuffing.

The book I've been using, Signature Dishes From Around the World, tells of how this is a traditional Polish dish and the recipe calls for a traditional filling without meat for Christmas Eve. The filling is simply ricotta cheese, an egg and chives.

Once the filling is all mixed up, the trick is putting it in the pierogi and sealing them up into cute half moon shapes. Those of you who bake probably have some tips for how to do this (Please share!), but being a novice I just crimped them the best I could. I also crimped a fork around the edges because that seemed like a good idea I had seen somewhere?  Next, it's into some boiling water. They weren't as pretty as the book's picture or as pretty as Mrs. T's, but it would have to do.

The hubs and I both love anything you put with peppers and onions, so I crisped up the pierogi with those and the result was a pretty good dish. Next time I hope they're a little prettier, but hey they tasted better than Mrs. T's.

Tzatziki Time

Well, dish number one from Signature Dishes from Around the World came out a success in my kitchen over the weekend. It was steamy here over the weekend and we had planned to grill out some burgers. The hubs says to me "Why aren't you just waiting until we make gyros for this tzatziki stuff?" I thought it would be wonderful for dipping veggies and pita chips. As most guys are, he isn't into dipping veggies in anything unless it's some celery in blue cheese following a chicken wing. By the end of the evening he was dipping EVERYTHING in this stuff (think Doritos). He also had a good idea for some Greek nachos that I'm going to try. Anywhoo, here's the deal:

The recipes in this book are written pretty simply and give a good deal of history. The first and very important step is to grate one cucumber over a colander. I used an English cucumber. One thing the recipe didn't say was to grate it into short, manageable ribbons in order to have it bite size in your dip. You then leave the cucumber to drain with a sprinkle of salt for an hour.

Once your cucumber has drained for an hour, squeeze it out in a clean kitchen towel to get rid of the excess liquid. Combine the cucumber with the following:

2 cups plain Greek yogurt
5 Tbsp EVOO
3 cloves of garlic, chopped and mashed
Dill and salt to taste

The book suggested grating the garlic into a paste using a mortar (which I don't have), so I just smushed it with my knife and some kosher salt until it formed a paste.

End Result!

Creamy, fresh, and delicious!

First week out of school has been relaxing and fun. When the hubs has a night off on a "school night" during the school year we often opt for take-out. Now that I'm out for summer, however, I'm in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Last night we were in the mood for some down home comfort food before I start cooking food from around the world. I centered our meal around one of my favorites, greens! I've never met a green I didn't like. I was helped along by acquiring some beautiful kale (they think) from my parents' greenhouse. Can anyone tell just from looking at the picture? They threw it in there and it grew, never mind they don't know what kind of green it is- we eat any of them anyway.

I was feeling down home as I said, so I had to start with some ham hocks. I often try to "skinny" them up a bit though, with just a mere slice of bacon for flavor. Last night we were going full-out.

Not so appetizing in the package, but adds great flavor.

I threw those in the pot with a touch of olive oil while I chopped an onion and a couple cloves of garlic. Those go in with the hocks to sweat out about five minutes. In go the greens along with some S & P as well as some crushed red pepper and about 6 cups of water.

I let the greens simmer and get yummy for only about 45 minutes last night because we were starving, but I like them really tender and could have let them go longer.

The greens were what we really wanted out of the meal, but I also had some great young potatoes (again from Mom and Dad) and made my fave pork chop recipe from allrecipes.com:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/rosemary-sherry-pork-chops/detail.aspx

End Result:

That's my version of comfort on a plate (a rooster plate nonetheless).

Now I'm ready for my kitchen to venture around the world with the recipes I've picked from Signature Dishes from Around the World.

New Adventure (My First Post)

Being a teacher who is off (well, at least part time) for the summer, I began searching for my first fun summer project. Along with trying my hand at this blogging thing, I've decided to try and expand my cooking horizons. I'm from a southern family that has inspired me to become proficient in cooking their staples, but now I'm up for something more. This book seemed like a good start:

http://www.amazon.com/Signature-Dishes-Around-World-Paolo/dp/8854406082/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339027671&sr=8-1

 

I'm pledging to learn at least 10 dishes from this book this summer. As my hubs and I looked through the book last night (he's always up for eating my food, the dear guy), we chose 10 dishes, plus an extra in case something fails miserably. I padded myself with some that I'm at least familiar with or have eaten (pierogi and tzatziki) and some that will be a total adventure. One of the more adventurous that I'm looking forward to trying is Mafe from Gambia. It is described as a beef stew made with peanut butter. Sounds a bit unique, but the picture looks pretty tasty.

 

I'm starting out first with the safest of the ten and attempting tzatziki. Will post pics and review from the hubs when it's done and eaten.