Fighting cancer with pizza. Seriously.

This Tomato Spinach Mushroom Pizza is chock full of ingredients rich in antioxidants, vitamins and nutrients all thought to fight cancer. Recipe and suggested variations below.

We have all been touched by cancer at some point in our lives. Friends, loved ones, family members, colleagues… Chris over at Mele Cotte says that her own diagnosis eight years ago, coming close on the heels of the loss of her beloved grandmother to cancer, “rocked my world in a way that profoundly changed my view on many things.”

First, she made some changes in her own life, quitting smoking and making other healthy lifestyle choices. Then she set out to help others make changes too. In March of 2007, she launched an annual food blogging event, Cooking to Combat Cancer. Now in its third year, this event is both a celebration of her beating the disease and a call to arms to eat healthier. Chris invites bloggers—and even non-blogging food lovers—to submit recipes using cancer-fighting ingredients for a round-up she then posts. The deadline for Cooking to Combat Cancer III is Wednesday, April 29, so get cooking!

Turns out eating healthy really is good for you. It seems that every day, we hear that eating good stuff and avoiding bad stuff is even healthier than our mothers ever imagined. Choosing the right foods can lower cholesterol, reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, fight the onset of Alzheimer’s… And according to a growing list of scientific studies, a whole raft of foods can help fight cancer. Continue reading “Fighting cancer with pizza. Seriously.” →

Eternal City, quick meal: Pasta and Chickpeas

“One of Rome’s favorite humble dishes,” pasta e ceci, comes together quickly, deliciously with the aid of pancetta and garlic. Recipe below.

As with most national cuisines, the food of Italy is very much a collection of individual regional cuisines. Sure, there are national common threads, but there are also distinct differences. From Piedmont in the North, known for its cheeses, wines, white truffles and quality herbs to Sicily at the Southern tip, melding Arab and Northern techniques in dishes heavy on seafood and simple peasant ingredients [and a wonderful touch with rich sweets], to Tuscany in the middle, whose food has been described as being “of the earth”—wild game, cured meats, crusty breads and some of Italy’s best olives.

This Valentine’s Day, I was introduced to yet another Italian regional cuisine with a wonderful gift, an unfortunately out-of-print cookbook, Roma: Authentic Recipes from In and Around the Eternal City. I don’t know about you, but I’d never thought of a distinctly Roman cuisine before. Major capitals are such magnets for people from everywhere, each bringing and sharing their own foods, that it’s hard to imagine them having their own food personalities. Well, I’m happy to report that I’m wrong. Author Julia Della Croce and photographer Paolo Destefanis take us on a tour through the history of food in Rome and then sit us down at the table, serving up dish after delicious dish. Marion often says that if she gets one really good recipe from a cookbook, something she’ll make again and again, the book has earned its place on the bookshelf. If this simple, hearty dish is any indication, I think this book will earn its place many times over. Continue reading “Eternal City, quick meal: Pasta and Chickpeas” →

Beyond green beans: Leeks with a lemon vinaigrette make an easy, impressive side

Break out of the green-beans-as-default-side-dish rut with quickly prepared Leeks with Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette. Recipe below.

APPARENTLY, IT’S WEEK TWO OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE HERE AT BLUE KITCHEN. Last week was a very creamy, very French carrot soup. This week, it’s a French side dish whose impressive looks belie its ease of preparation. The unlikely star? Leeks. Ubiquitous in French cuisine, these mild onions usually play a bit part, often ending up puréed beyond recognition. Here, they’re cooked and served practically whole, giving you a sense that you’re eating something only very recently brought from the farm. Continue reading “Beyond green beans: Leeks with a lemon vinaigrette make an easy, impressive side” →

Eating with our noses: Fragrant caramelized onions star in a rustic pasta dish

Caramelized onions, grape tomatoes, fresh Parmesan cheese and olive oil are the only ingredients besides pasta in a hearty vegetarian meal. Recipe below.

A quick note: It appears to be all onion week at Blue Kitchen. Right below this post, you’ll find a recipe for a Sherry Dijon Vinaigrette that makes the most of the onion’s more refined cousin, the shallot.

Much has been said, including here, about how we “eat with our eyes.” That’s why we work so hard on presentation, isn’t it, arranging everything just so on the plate, maybe even giving plate rims a quick little wipe with a cloth before putting them on the table if we’re in total restaurant mode at home?

Well, we also eat with our noses. I thought about this recently as I smelled one of the coolest food smells I know. I was walking down the street and got a whiff of lots of onions cooking. It was wafting from some restaurant on a busy street, early enough in the morning that they were being cooked as part of some dish that would be served later in the day.

I love that smell. Partly, I’m sure, it’s the promise of something delicious to come. But more than that, it’s a vicarious olfactory glimpse into the world of professional cooking. It’s the same reason I like eating at the counter at Heaven on Seven here in Chicago, watching the line cooks in the open kitchen tending multiple pans and efficiently plating orders, all while seemingly effortlessly avoiding collisions with one another and waitstaff. It’s the same reason we watch the pros cook on TV—for that peek behind the curtain.

That morning, the sharp/sweet smell got me thinking about giving onions a starring role in some dish. Pasta seemed like a natural choice. Casting about for something else to add to the mix, I remembered seeing a gorgeous picture somewhere of sautéed grape or cherry tomatoes tossed with pasta. Throw in some olive oil and fresh Parmesan and I knew my ingredient list was done. Continue reading “Eating with our noses: Fragrant caramelized onions star in a rustic pasta dish” →

Quick and easy Sherry Dijon Vinaigrette: A reason to quit hitting the bottle

In minutes, Spanish sherry vinegar, Dijon mustard, shallots and olive oil become a lively vinaigrette that blows right past bottled salad dressings. Recipe below.

Mark Bittman loves his lists. In a recent article, “Fresh Start for a New Year? Let’s Begin in the Kitchen”, The New York Times’ Minimalist lists 15 OUTS and INS for the pantry—things to get rid of and what to replace them with.

I love Bittman’s lists too. Oh, I don’t always agree with everything on his lists, including this one [canned beans are OUT?—I don’t think so, and neither does über chef David Burke]. Invariably, though, something on each list makes me rethink how I do things in the kitchen, inspires me to try a new technique or explore a new ingredient.

And I’ll admit, one reason I love his lists is that invariably, at least one item on them makes me feel a little smug, because I’m already on the same page with him. This, for instance: “OUT Bottled salad dressing and marinades. The biggest rip-offs imaginable.” We haven’t bought bottled salad dressing in years. Making them, especially a simple vinaigrette, is just too darned easy to pay bottled dressing prices and get, well, bottled dressing flavor.

As an added bonus, you can generally pronounce all the ingredients in homemade dressing. Years ago, a potter friend of mine picked up the bottle of store-bought salad dressing I had just used to prepare a salad and started reading the ingredients. When he came to one multi-syllabic item in the list, he said he added that same ingredient to his glazes to help them stick to the unfired clay. Continue reading “Quick and easy Sherry Dijon Vinaigrette: A reason to quit hitting the bottle” →

Fast, healthy, delicious: Puréed cauliflower

Puréed Cauliflower’s lively flavor makes for a great substitute for mashed potatoes. Marion’s recipe below.

Why isn’t cauliflower more popular? It is so wonderful—subtle, but not bland, so easy to prepare and so complementary to strong flavors. The part about it also being so healthy (a crucifer packed with vitamin C, Vitamin K, folate, and fiber, plus cancer fighting compounds) and even so low-carb is a great big bonus.

This cauliflower purée is so simple that it ranks among our not-exactly-a-recipe recipes. And it’s the perfect complement for Wine-braised Short Ribs.

Puréed Cauliflower
Serves two

1 small head cauliflower
water for steaming
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon butter
salt

Discard any leaves that may cling to the stem, then break up the cauliflower head. You want to use everything except the cone-like core and the stem. Break the florets into pieces all about the same size, so that they will finish cooking simultaneously.

Put the cauliflower in a flat-bottomed skillet and pour about 3/4 cup of water around the florets. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover tightly and steam until it is barely fork tender. Most recipes say this will take around 15 minutes, but I find that it actually tends more toward 10 or 11 minutes. Don’t let the cauliflower become too soft. A fork should go in easily, but it shouldn’t be mushy and collapsible. When in doubt, err on the side of less cooked rather than more.

Once the cauliflower is cooked, turn off the heat. Don’t discard the cooking water! Put about half the cauliflower in the bowl of a processor; add a bit of the cooking water—I recommend around 1/4 cup of cooking liquid for each cup of cauliflower, if you want to make a purée that still mounds nicely and doesn’t run all over the plate. Process quickly in short bursts of five or ten seconds. Scrape down the sides of the processor bowl in between so everything s uniformly pureed.

Once the cauliflower starts looking like mashed potatoes (just a few seconds) add the remaining cauliflower. Test it at this point—if it is very wet, don’t add any more cooking liquid yet. Add the butter and the rest of the oil. Process, keeping an eye on it. If the cauliflower looks too grainy and solid, add a judicious amount of cooking liquid. You want it to be smooth in texture, not grainy but not liquid either–visually like mashed potatoes. When the texture is to your liking, carefully add salt. Now it’s ready to serve.

Options:

Substitute milk or, if you are feeling lavish, cream for some or all of the cooking water.

You can also add a flock of different things to alter this basic recipe:

During the steaming process, add a clove of garlic [but discard it before puréeing]
Instead of a mix of olive oil and butter, use all butter
After it has been puréed, return it to a saucepan, heat slightly, and stir in cheese—Parmesan, or extra sharp cheddar; serve it with sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions for a vegetarian-friendly entrée

I recently ran across a version of this using blue cheese to which I can only say OMDG we are so trying that soon. And we also want to try the Pan-Seared Salmon over Cauliflower Fennel over at Mike’s Table.

Dinner Double Feature, Part 2: Roasted beets create a truly golden salad

In which Marion capitalizes on Terry’s belated revelation that beets are delicious, especially in this Roasted Beet Salad with Oranges and Blue Cheese. Recipe below.

THE CAULIFLOWER SOUP TERRY POSTED LAST WEEK BEGAN AS A TUNA SANDWICH, and this roasted beet salad began as a trip to New York City. Our friend Laura and I were traipsing around town, a few years back, on a trip that included a lot of food and a lot of conversation about food. In the course of it all, we went into Zabar’s—me to look for various gifts, and Laura to look for pomegranate molasses for a stew she wanted to try. I had never heard of pomegranate molasses before, and I filed it in my head, alongside sumac and boldo, for future reference. That event—learning about something brand new and potentially marvelous in the company of a great friend—became an emblem of that wonderful trip. Continue reading “Dinner Double Feature, Part 2: Roasted beets create a truly golden salad” →

A big, warm bowl of comfort: Roasted cauliflower and dill soup

Roasting the cauliflower mellows its flavor in this hearty, creamy [but dairy-free] Roasted Cauliflower and Dill Soup. Substitute vegetable broth for the chicken stock and you’ve got a satisfying vegan meal. Recipe below.

A quick note: I’ve totally dropped the ball in terms of providing any ideas for Thanksgiving this year. But at the end of the post, I’ll provide a few links for some interesting sides.

As proof that you just never know where inspiration will strike, this soup started out as a tuna sandwich. On a recent Sunday, that’s what sounded good for lunch. But Marion and I wanted our sandwiches on better bread than we had at home, so we walked up to Kurowski Sausage Shop, a Polish deli/grocery/bakery in our neighborhood. By the time we had walked the five or so blocks in the brisk November air, though, some soup was sounding pretty good—and Kurowski serves up delicious homemade soups fresh and cheap in their refrigerator case.

After flirting with bigos and borscht and some other Eastern European delights, we settled on a hearty cauliflower soup flecked with fresh dill. Being no fools, we got two containers—a whopping $1.29 each. Back home, the tuna sandwiches became half-sandwiches, bit players to the soup’s star performance. And as I leaned over my steaming bowl with big chunks of cauliflower and carrots, I knew I would be attempting my own version soon. Continue reading “A big, warm bowl of comfort: Roasted cauliflower and dill soup” →

Homemade pizza, quick enough for a weeknight

Mushrooms, arugula, red onion and mozzarella come together with [gasp!] ready made dough for this Mostly Wild Mushroom Pizza, about as fast as delivery. Recipe below.

Let me start with a confession. This is the first pizza I’ve ever made. We love pizza, and Marion occasionally makes it, always a treat. But mostly when we want pizza, we order out. That’s because when we think of having it, it’s often either [a.] close enough to dinner that we don’t have the time or patience to make pizza dough or [b.] a weeknight and we’ve been at work all day, which means see [a.].

So when I was invited to test a ready-to-bake thin crust pizza dough, Pillsbury® Thin Crust Pizza Crust, I jumped at the chance. It’s not that I’m afraid of making pizza dough [okay, well maybe I am just a little]; it’s more that I hate to plan ahead. And even though pizza dough is decidedly unfinicky and nonfragile, unlike many bread doughs, there’s also a bit of the pain-in-the-ass factor at play here, at least for me.

But if someone else were to make the dough and I was free to concentrate on the toppings, I would be intrigued. And I was. I was even further intrigued by the fact that this was thin crust dough. Despite Chicago’s reputation as a deep dish town, there’s an ever-growing contingent that prefers thin crust. Count me in that group.

Okay, so I had some dough to play with, courtesy of Pillsbury. [Full disclosure time: They sent me the pizza crust dough for free, and that’s how I’m reviewing this product, for free.] Now I had to figure out what I wanted to do with it. First, I nosed around Deb’s excellent Smitten Kitchen archives. Deb loooves pizza and shares great ideas for making it on her blog from time to time. I’ll include links to some great tips she has in the Kitchen Notes below. You’ll find more about how the pizza dough performed there too.

Next I hit the library. I came away with a few books on pizza, including one by noted Italian chef Wolfgang Puck. But the one I gravitated to and learned the most from was a practical little volume, stuffed with recipes, helpful tips and gorgeous photographs, called Pizza! It’s by two London-based food writers, Pippa Cuthbert [by way of New Zealand] and Lindsay Cameron Wilson [by way of Canada]. They talk about equipment, give recipes for various doughs [and yes, I will make my own at some point] and devote an entire chapter to classic pizza recipes. And then they take off in many directions, just as pizza itself has done.

Reading through numerous recipes in Pizza!, I came up with lots of ideas to try. More important, I got a good sense of basic techniques for working with topping ingredients and the encouragement to experiment. Continue reading “Homemade pizza, quick enough for a weeknight” →

Pasta with pecan pesto, pronto

Fresh basil, garlic and Parmesan pack plenty of flavor in this quick dish, perfect for weeknight suppers. Besides boiling water for pasta, the only cooking involved is pan toasting the pecans.

FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW, WE DIDN’T HAVE A GARDEN. That meant no fresh tomatoes, still warm from the sun. No fragrant fresh rosemary. And perhaps worst of all, no armloads of fresh basil to turn into delicious batches of pesto—some to be consumed immediately, some to be frozen in small zippered bags for a taste of summer in midwinter. Continue reading “Pasta with pecan pesto, pronto” →