Pretty in Purple

Hey Northeasterners, it's getting cold and wintry out there, but there is still fresh produce to be had. Like this gorgeous purple broccoli from Tendercrop Farm in Newbury, MA.

I prepared it simply and the results were so delicious we gobbled it up before I could snap a picture.

Oven-Roasted Broccoli

Thank you The Amateur Gourmet for the recipe.

• Broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets - about 4 cups. I also used those beautiful broccoli leaves, sliced into julienne
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 4 tablespoons olive oil (or enough for a healthy glug or two to pour over the broccoli)
• salt

Set the oven to 425. On a baking, toss the broccoli into an even layer. Scatter the garlic slices over the broccoli and drizzle with oil and a sprinkle of salt. Roast for about 20 minutes, until the broccoli is softened and has started to crisp up a little.

Wow - delicious and super simple. The broccoli leaves got very crispy and added a nice textural contrast to the broccoli.

Fried Smelt Po'Boy

This meal came together as the result of a plan-free shopping trip to Whole Foods. I wandered past the seafood display and saw a tray of fresh smelt (smelts?) on display. I've been trying to cook more sustainable seafood and these seemed like a great option to work with. For some reason, the idea of a smelt po'boy came to me. Inspiration-struck, I hustled through the store and picked up the remainder of what I thought I'd need to make supper: a baguette, a few tangerines (trust me) and a lemon.

The plate would have looked more than a little tan, so I included a salad in my meal's design to keep scurvy at bay.

Fried Smelt Po'Boy with Fennel-Chicory-Tangerine Salad

Disclaimer: I have never eaten a real po'boy, so I make no claims to the authenticity of my sandwich. All I can say is that it was delicious.

This looks like a lot of components, but don't worry: this all came together really fast. Also, there's nothing wrong with using regular tartar sauce, plain butter, skipping the salad, etc.

Makes enough for two servings:

For fish

• 12 ounces gutted, cleaned smelts (don't worry about the bones - they'll soften up during the frying and will be 100% edible)
• Wondra flour, for dredging
• Oil for frying

For fennel-lemon tartar sauce

• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Chopped fennel fronds
• Hot pepper flakes, to taste

For mustard butter

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons creole mustard

To finish sandwich

• 12" baguette, cut into 2 pieces and sliced lengthwise (like a book)

For salad

• Fennel bulb
• 1 tangerine or clementine
• 2 handfuls shredded chicory
• sherry vinegar
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Make tartar sauce: Mix all ingredients together and adjust salt, heat and acid to your taste.

Make mustard butter: Blend butter and mustard together.

Make salad: Thinly slice fennel bulb (a mandoline is great for this). Peel and section the tangerine into segments. Toss fennel and tangerine segments with chicory. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of sherry vinegar over the salad and then a few tablespoons of olive oil. Toss to combine, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Fry the fish: Heat 1/2" oil in frying pan. Dredge the smelts in Wondra flour. When oil is hot (sprinkle a little flour into oil - it should sizzle up and brown quickly), fry the fish in batches until lightly browned. Remove fish from pan and drain on paper towels. Let the oil come up to heat again before frying more fish. (I fried mine in two batches.)

Assemble sandwich: heat the baguettes in a 300 oven until warm and crusty. Spread the inside of the bread with mustard butter. Fill each sandwich with fish (leave some tails poking out the ends, for fun). Sprinkle fish with salt and a squeeze of lemon juice. Top with tartar sauce. Serve with salad alongside or stuffed into the sandwich as you prefer. (We kept our salad on the side and stuffed a little in every now and then.)

T-Minus 30: Deep Dish Polenta Pizza

(Hey all I'm back, for the moment. I'm not making a big deal about it, because for all I know it'll be another 3 months before I post again.)

Thought I'd try introducing a new category on this site "T-Minus 30": Dinners that should be ready to go in about 30 minutes. This assumes you have the ingredients on hand and will be able to focus your attention on meal prep.

I got an email recently from a representative at Real Simple offering me a copy of their new cookbook Real Simple Best Recipes: Easy, Delicious Meals. A lot of the dishes are good one-dish options. For me, most of the mains could be rounded out with a salad and a loaf of good bread. A lot of the recipes can be easily adapted to sue what you have on hand.

The first recipe I tried was for Deep-Dish Polenta Pizza. The recipe itself called for a topping of sun-dried tomatoes, radicchio and mozzarella. It also called for you to make polenta from scratch. I had none of those things on hand, but I did have some premade polenta (Fra Mani brand, from Costco!), stewed tomatoes and shallots (and mozzarella).

Deep-Dish Polenta Pizza

This is more of a method or idea than a recipe, so I'm going to give you the gist and you can take it from there.

• Heat the oven to 400.
• Prepare about 3 cups of polenta (either from scratch, by whisking 1 cup of polenta meal in 2 cups of boiling water for about 5 minutes*, or whisking premade polenta to loosen it up) and stir in about 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese.
• Spread polenta in the bottom of an oiled baking dish (a 9" pie pan works perfectly).
• Top polenta with ingredients of your choice. The recipe called for sun-dried tomatoes, shredded radicchio and mozzarella. I used stewed tomatoes, thinly sliced shallots and fresh mozzarella.
• Bake for about 20 minutes, until toppings are melting and softened and the edges of polenta are starting to crisp.

Try this recipe with whatever ingredients you have on hand. I think this would be fabulous with cooked sausage, fennel and asiago cheese.

* I know that true polenta needs to be cooked slowly and low, for at least 30 minutes. What we're doing here is cooking the polenta just enough to hydrate it.

Ricotta-Stuffed Tomatoes

Here's an easy dinner idea for you. It scales up or down easily, comes together in minutes and makes for an appealing light supper. We ate ours with salad and whole-wheat crackers. These tomatoes would be a nice addition to a buffet table or potluck - they are good warm or at room temperature.

I used semi-crappy supermarket ricotta, so I dolled it up with grated fontina and parmesan; if you have access to ricotta cheese that actually tastes great on its own, no need to gild that lily. I used basil and parsley in the ricotta mixture, but you can substitute in any herbs you have on hand.

Ricotta-Stuffed Tomatoes
Serves 1 - this will easily scale up

• 1 medium tomato (a little smaller than a baseball)
• 1/2 cup ricotta
• 2 tablespoons grated cheese (any firm, flavorful cheese: parmesan, fontina, asiago, even cheddar)
• 2-3 tablespoons of chopped herbs
• handful of breadcrumbs, optional
• olive oil
  

Preheat the oven to 400.

Cut the tomato in half, through the core end. Scoop out the seeds and pulp, leaving a tomato shell. Sprinkle the tomato shell with salt and pepper.

Combine ricotta, cheese and herbs. Taste and adjust salt to taste. Fill the shells with ricotta mixture. Top with breadcrumbs, if you're using them. Drizzle the tomatoes with a little oil.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the crumbs are browned and the tomatoes are a little softened. Wait at least 5 minutes to serve them as the ricotta will be very hot.

Drink of the Week: Perserverance

Wow, those two weeks sped by, didn't they? Sorry for being so remiss with my posting: it's just been crazy over here. I'm running my personal chef business, baking for (and selling at) a local farmers' market, working as a part-time chef at a retreat center and doing some human resources consulting (my "old" life raising its head every now and then). So posting has been taking a back seat to making a living.

Anyhoo, this week's cocktail gets us back in the swing of thing. Developed by A.J. Rathbun, it uses vodka, rose wine and maraschino liqueur. We don't have any vodka in the house, so I subbed in gin (shocker!) and everything came out great. The really nice thing about wine cocktails is that they don't give you a wallop like a straight-spirits cocktail. I am going to try making a few more of them, especially for weeknight sipping.

To see the story of this cocktail, check out A.J.'s blog post and his video on How2Heroes - linked below.

Perserverance Cocktail

Combine in an iced mixing glass:

• 2 ounces rose wine (I used the dregs of a bottle of Kalmuck rose, wasn't too sweet)
• 1 ounce vodka (I used Plymouth gin)
• 1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
• dash of Peychaud's bitters

Stir until well-chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass. I added a lemon twist to mine.