Kitchen Chick

Is My Blog Burning #6 Summary

Life conspired once again to prevent my participation. I injured my back on Thursday doing, of all things, Tai Chi. (How?, one asks. I don't know. But it hurt. A lot.) So I spent the weekend lying on my back with legs raised or in a lot of pain. Ugh. I had planned a lovely spread of things I had never cooked before, and... well... I still haven't cook them. :-) C'est la vie. Better luck next time.

But you can read about IMBB #6 at the host site: Too Many Chefs: IMBB #6.

Pasta with Rosemary and Butter Sauce

Okay, it's another pasta dish, but I wouldn't post if it wasn't mighty good...

I was making a favorite dinner of ours and I needed a side dish. Pasta — the easy answer. I thought I'd look for something new, and I ran across this gem in Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Not having the left over juice from a roast, I followed her suggestions for "faking" la pasta col tocco d'arrosto, which Hazan named "Rosemary and Butter Sauce." (While I didn't have the leftover juices from a roast, I did have nice beef bits from the pan-fried steaks that I deglazed with the butter.)

Absolutely delicious. This is why I have an herb garden. Have I mentioned that before?

Rosemary and Butter Sauce
3-4 garlic cloves
6 Tbs butter, cut into pieces
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 beef bouillon cube, crushed (I used beef soup base from Penzey's)
1/3 C. freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano
1 lb. pasta (I used Bionaturea's whole wheat organic spaghettini)

Mash the garlic and remove the peel. Put garlic, rosemary, and butter in a saute pan or small sauce pan and turn heat to medium. Cook, stirring frequently, for 4 to 5 minutes.

Add crushed bouillon cube. Cook and stir until the bouillon is completely dissolved.

Pour the sauce through a fine strainer over cooked and drained pasta. Toss. Add parmigiano and toss again. Serve with additional grated cheese on the side.

Spaghetti with Herbs and Raw Tomato

This is why I have an herb garden...

Spaghetti with Herbs and Raw Tomato
From Marcella's Italian Kitchen

1 lb spaghetti

1 1/2 lb. fresh tomatoes, seeded and chopped in 1/2" cubes
3 Tbs fresh basil, chopped
1 Tbs fresh sage, chopped
3 Tbs fresh parsley, chopped
1 Tbs fresh rosemary, chopped fine
1 Tbs fresh mint, chopped
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt
black pepper

Set enough salted water for the spaghetti to boil.

While waiting for the water to boil, prepare the tomatoes and herbs and put them in a large bowl.

When water is boiling, add spaghetti.

When the spaghetti is nearly done, heat the olive oil over high heat until it is smoking hot. Pour it over the tomatoes and herbs. It should sizzle. Add salt and pepper to taste.

When pasta is barely tender but firm to bite, drain well and transfer to the bowl with the tomato-herb mix. Toss to mix ingredients and serve.

Sweet Preserved Olives

Some foods have to be experienced to be understood.

Is My Blog Burning #6

I learned about IMBB several "editions" ago, but in spite of swearing repeatedly that I wouldn't miss the next one, I've missed every one of them. Until now. I finally have advance notice of the next IMBB. Too Many Chefs is hosting the sixth edition of Is My Blog Burning. The theme is BBQ and grilling. Not my best area, but that just means it'll be a challenge.

Kitchen Chick in Columbus, Ohio

Not too busy to cook, but definitely too busy to post much about cooking. I just had a work contract kick in, and between that and my other activities, posting here in any great detail is not likely to be happening. This contract is only about three weeks long, but if my bank account is lucky, I'll have more work in August. This work thing really cuts into the free time.

This past weekend, however, I ate some really fabulous food in Columbus, Ohio.

Now why would anyone from Ann Arbor Michigan want to visit Columbus not during football season? Origins is in Columbus. So is a great camera shop. And a scant block away from the convention center is the North Market, a wonderful collection of stores and restaurants that happens to include Firdous Express, a wonderful North African/Mediterranean restaurant. Joe had the spicy chicken tagine (not as spicy hot as the sign claims), and I had a very tasty melt-in-your-mouth lamb stew with saffron rice topped with pinenuts. Yum. North Market aslo features Jeni's Fresh Ice Creams, one of the USA's top ice cream stores, where you can sample such amazing flavors as salted caramel with toasted almonds, chocolate curry, chocolate cayenne, lavender and wild berry, passionfruit, strawberry and basil sorbet, mango, and the list of unique (and familiar) flavors goes on. And the really wonderful thing is that there are yet more restaurants and shops to forward to checking out next year.

In the convention center, on the edge of the good but ordinary food court, is the amazing peanut store. I don't know what it's called, but if you're in the Columbus convention center, you don't need a name. Just ask to find the food court, then ask where you can get the peanut butter shakes. In addition to the shakes (said to be marvelous by others I've talked to), they sell an evil-ly delicious confection of popcorn coated in caramel, peanut butter, and chocolate.

Also in the Columbus area is the Indonesian restaurant Taste of Bali. Now we can't get Indonesian in Southeast Michigan, and Joe adores Indonesian food above all other cuisines, so of course we had to go. A group of six of us went, and five of us handed the restaurant a pile of money and ask them to put together mongo-large custom rijstaffel. (The sixth was a vegetarian, so he ordered on his own.) I have pictures, and when I have time I'll post them.