Green beans wok’d with garlic

Spring seems to bring a lot of chores, doesn’t it. I’ve been trying to get some of my garden planted. I’ve got a couple of basil plants in, as well as some hot pepper plants. I still need to get tomatoes planted.

If I have time, I’ll plant some green beans as well. I love fresh green beans cooked with a little garlic, but still crisp and snappy. This is how I do that.

1-1/2 lb. green beans

4 cloves of garlic

Dash of red pepper flakes

Olive oil

Cajun seasoning

Preparation

Heat a wok until very hot. Add enough olive oil to form a puddle in the bottom of the wok. Add the red pepper flakes and stir for about half a minute. Add the green beans.

Carefully use a little hand flip motion to toss the beans in the wok - kind of like those fancy TV chefs do on those cooking shows. After about five minutes, smash and mince the garlic and add that to the wok. Let the beans cook for a total of ten minutes, tossing them often to evenly distribute the garlic flavor as they cook.

When the beans are done, some will have a little char to them, but they will also still have a little ‘snap’ too.

Serving

I guess it isn’t difficult to figure out how to serve these. Put a pile of them on a plate. How’s that? Ok, maybe sprinkle on a little grated parmesan cheese too.

Now place some grilled chicken or a great big steak next to them. Add some homemade bread and butter. For the wine, open a bottle of Montepulciano dʼAbruzzo to wash everything down. 

For dessert, serve a big fruit salad with watermelon, pineapple, grapes, cantaloupe and strawberries.

Calamari with stewed tomatoes

I like to improvise when I cook. There are times I just start cooking without really knowing what I’m going to make. I usually end up with something really tasty. Oh, I’ve had a stinker, now and then, but most are good. The hard part is remembering what I did when I write my recipe down. 

This calamari stew was an example of improvising. I wasn’t real sure what the end product would be until I was about halfway done cooking it. It turned out to be one of the good ones.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as an Italian dish, a Greek dish, a Spanish dish or possibly a Cajun dish. I guess it has elements of all four. Maybe we can call it a Mediterranean dish with a funny accent. Don’t sit there and try to classify this for too long, or someone may gobble it up before you get any.

Olive oil

2 tbs. butter

4 cloves of garlic, minced fine 

1 cup chopped bell pepper

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped onion

1 large shallot, minced fine 

Red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp. ground chipotle

1/2 tsp. smoked paprika

1 tsp. white pepper

1/2 tsp. thyme

1/2 tsp. oregano

1 cup white wine

1 can plum tomatoes

1 lb. frozen calamari

Tabasco

Cajun seasoning

Preparation

Heat a large braising pan and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Melt the butter and then add the garlic, bell pepper, celery, onion and shallots along with a good sprinkle of red pepper flakes. Cover and let that gently cook for about ten minutes until the vegetables have softened.

Stir in the chipotle, smoked paprika, white pepper, thyme and oregano. Stir that for about a minute and then add the white wine. Bring that to a boil and let that reduce by about half. Add the can of tomatoes and using a knife and fork break them up. 

Cover and let that simmer gently for another ten minutes. Add the calamari along with several dashes of Tabasco and a sprinkle of cajun seasoning. Stir and return it to a simmer and let that go for about five minutes and turn the heat off.

Serving

You could serve this over pasta if you want, but here’s the way I like to serve it. Place a large pile of rice in a bowl and drown the rice in the stewed calamari. Drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil over the stew. 

What else should you have? Well, fresh crusty homemade bread is a no brainer. I would also like a big salad with a red wine vinaigrette. For the wine, you’d want a light bodied Italian red, or possibly a chilled Prosecco. You might need a second helping of calamari too. Just saying. For dessert, I’d like bread pudding with a whiskey and brown sugar butter sauce.

Lentil bean soup

One Sunday, a while back, I had grand plans of making a Thai chicken for dinner, but later in the day, I didn’t have the energy to go to the store and get the chicken. I ended up just pulling a leftover ham bone out of the fridge, and making soup. When all else fails, you can always make soup.

I didn’t have a whole pound of lentils, so I supplemented it with a can of beans. As I recall, it turned out pretty good. Here’s what I did.

Olive oil

2 medium onions

1/2 cup chopped carrot

1 cup of chopped celery

1 red bell pepper

1 ham bone with meat

12 oz. red lentils

Water (I don’t know, maybe 3 quarts) 1/2 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. cajun seasoning

1 tsp. thyme

1/4 tsp. ground cayenne

1 15 oz. can cannellini beans Louisiana Hot Sauce

Salt and pepper

Preparation

Heat a large soup pot and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the onions, celery, carrots and bell pepper, and let that cook until the onions have softened, about five minutes. Add the cumin, cajun seasoning, thyme and cayenne pepper. Stir and add the ham bone.

Add the water. Now please don’t nag me. I don’t measure how much water I added. I brought the pot to the sink and added ‘enough’ water. This isn’t rocket science, it’s soup. Add water.

Bring the water to a boil. While it’s coming to a boil, sort and rinse the lentils and add those to the soup. Let the soup simmer for about forty five minutes and add the canned beans. (Cannellini beans are a fancy name for beans similar to navy beans.) Let that cook, stirring often for about another hour. You want to leave the lid slightly ajar so the soup can thicken a little. Add a bunch of Louisiana Hot Sauce and adjust for salt and pepper. Give it a final taste and it's ready to serve.

Serving

When I serve lentil or bean soup, I like to keep things simple. I had a large bowl of soup (ok, your right, I had three large bowls) along with sliced homemade bread and butter. I also had a bowl of carrot sticks, celery sticks, sliced cucumber and broccoli pieces to nibble on with the soup. I washed it all down with some red wine.

Leftover steak turned into burritos

Last year, at this time, the was a lot of cleanup going on in my neighborhood due to The Great Lisle Flood Of 2013. One night, while that was going on, I had a mass of people over for dinner and we dined on porterhouse steaks. Everyone ate their fill but we had more steaks than people. I ended up with two and a half of the large steaks left.

The next night, I turned the steak into a burrito dinner. That night, it was just three of us for dinner so the leftover steaks turned out to be the perfect amount. Here’s how I prepared those burritos.

2 large leftover steaks olive oil

2 medium onions

1 large bell pepper

1 large jalapeño

2 cloves of garlic

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. cajun seasoning

Fresh ground white pepper 

Juice of one lime

Dash of Worcestershire sauce 

Dash of soy sauce

1 package of large flour tortillas (burrito wraps)

Preparation

Cut all the steak off the bone and chop it into small bites. Cut the onion and peppers into strips and then mince the garlic. Heat a large cast iron skillet and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the chopped steak and stir until that is sizzling.

Season the meat with the cumin, cajun seasoning and some fresh ground white pepper. Add the peppers, garlic and onions and stir until the onions start to soften. Add the lime juice, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce, and stir. Once everything is sizzling, turn off the heat. Heat another large cast iron skillet until it is very hot and have it ready with a spatula.

Serving

Place a bowl of shredded cheese, some sour cream and some hot taco sauce on the counter. Have each dinner guest grab a tortilla and heat it in the empty cast iron skillet about fifteen seconds per side.

The rest is easy. Just spoon some beef and vegetables on the tortilla and then add some cheese, sour cream and hot sauce to it. Let them roll it up how they like. Normally, I like ice cold Riesling with burritos, but we had a cooler full of ice cold beer instead.

A tortellini soup recipe that was shamelessly pilfered

In mid-April, 2013, my neighborhood experienced a flood that has left several homes vacant even today, more than a year later. My neighbors next door were one of the hardest hit. They moved in with me and were my housemates for seven months, until they were able to purchase another home. We were a little cramped for space, but had a lot of fun.

The first week that my neighbors became housemates, one of them made a great tortellini soup that I couldn’t get enough of. I ate several bowls of it and loved it. I quizzed her a little on what was in it. I definitely want to try to duplicate this.

As best as I can guess, this is how to it. I can’t verify this is exactly how she made it, but with the questions I asked her, and my memory of it, this is pretty close.

Olive oil

2 cup of chopped onion

2 cup chopped carrot

2 cup chopped celery

9 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 tsp. basil

Fresh ground white pepper

4 quarts of homemade chicken stock 

1-1/2 lb. bag of frozen cheese tortellini

1 15 oz. container of pesto sauce

Fresh grated parmesan cheese for serving

Preparation

Heat a large soup pot. Add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the onion, carrots and celery and stir. Cook until the onions start to clarify and add the red pepper flakes, basil and one clove of the garlic. Grind on some white pepper and stir and let that cook for another minute.

Add the chicken stock and bring it to a boil. Let that simmer for about fifteen minutes. Add the frozen tortellini and bring the soup back to a simmer. Stir in the pesto sauce and the remaining 8 cloves of minced garlic. Let that simmer for another ten minutes and remove from the heat.

Serving

To serve this, simply ladle out the soup into large bowls. Get plenty of tortellini. Grate on lots of parmesan cheese to each bowl. Now add some homemade lasagna, broiled asparagus, homemade bread, and a good Italian red wine. Don’t forget the trays of vegetables and fruit too.

Pasta with mushroom alfredo

I absolutely love cream based pastas. They are easy to make and, when made with top quality ingredients, they are unbelievable. There was a time when I would make them whenever the urge would occur to me. These days with my doctor, and everyone else, preaching that I should eat healthy, I feel guilty and try to show restraint. Yes, I try to run, but that only covers so many sins. 

I can’t be good all the time, can I? Every once in a while I have to splurge. When I do, I compensate by making a side dish of sautéed spinach. That’s healthy, right?

You can use almost any kind of mushroom in this Alfredo. I personally like shiitake mushrooms, but portabellas work good too. Heck, even the plain white ones at the grocery are good. You know, as long as your splurging on this dish, why don’t you throw some almost-crisp, chopped bacon in along with the mushrooms. I won’t tell if you don’t.  

1 stick of butter

3 large shallots - sliced razor thin and chopped

cajun seasoning

white pepper

1 tsp. flour

1/2 lb. sliced shiitake mushrooms 

1-1/4 cups half & half

1 cup fresh grated parmesan

1 lb. fettuccine cooked al dente

Nutmeg for grating

Preparation

Heat a large skillet and melt the butter. Add the shallots and gently cook them without browning. Give them a good sprinkling of cajun seasoning and white pepper and then sprinkle in the flour. Stir for one minute.

Add the sliced mushrooms (and bacon, you might as well) and cook gently for about 10 minutes. Add the half and half and heat, while stirring, until it begins to simmer. Add the parmesan and stir to melt. Toss the pasta with the sauce. If you want, you could grate a little nutmeg over the pasta just before serving - it canʼt hurt. The key here is don’t toss the pasta until you are ready to serve it. It will absorb and get pasty if you don’t serve it right away.

Serving

You can serve this as a side dish to broiled lamb steaks and sautéed spinach. If you add fresh bread and a nice soup, you can round things out nicely with a good Sangiovese wine from Italy. If, instead of dinner, this is standing alone as a light lunch, serve it with a chilled Prosecco from Italy and some chilled fresh fruit for dessert.