caterina cacciatore

i was busy in the kitchen

the dearth of posts was due to her hogging the Mac as well as the tv

catching up soon

it was an ordinary week in the kitchen making vegetable broth, oxtail broth, asparagus sandwiches, and, oc, the ubiquitous chicken soup

more anon

aged mule poo

from exceedingly handsome / beautiful

mules / out in another one of those middle of nowhere places

you can go for mule rides / no charge / smile / and the fertilizer is free too

what more can one want out of a single lifetime ?

when the weather whips up some rain and cold wind Caterina heads for La Cucina

shall the leftover roast chicken become a wonderful chicken/noodle soup ?

or a scrumtious chicken/white rice soup ?

leftover coconut milk can be added to either with some ginger thrown in and myriad spices like cinnamon cayenne cardomon and cumin

i drool / i do love chicken soup

shall the chicken be married to Gregg's homegrown green chiles ? and then what ? have the chicken green chile in a spelt tortilla or over the brown rice (yes, there is both white rice and brown rice) or most exciting of all turned into chicken/green chile Tamales ?

oc there is a chicken salad sandwich with homegrown lettuce freshly picked from the garden

oh but wait ! the brown rice can become a tasty vegetable laden pilaf kind of dish with a lot of crispy crunchy nitrate free bacon bits scattered on the top and a handful of fresh parsley from the garden

or that parsley of which there is a vast amount can be made into a delicious alkalizing parsley soup / all the necessary ingredients are on hand : onion garlic celery zucchini broth plus the ubiquitous parsley

another way for the brown rice (soaked over night) is Hunza Rice :

saute onions (alot of them if you like onions) in the usual butter/oliveoil combo / then add the already cooked rice with generous handfuls of razens, currants, and whatever kind of nuts you have on hand

lots of fiber !

a classic recipe left over from Hippie Daze

stay tuned in

i llllllllllloooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeee these

get a nice smallish zucchini well about 8 inches

well, 8 inches in a zucchini is my preference / you can use bigger or smaller

this is a recipe for ONE person

one 8 inch zucchini shredded or grated in the food processor

one beaten egg

spoon load of flour (be scant, you can add more)

several brisk gratings of whatever cheese you have on hand / currently Monterey Jack with Jalapeno Peppers is everywhere in the EAT ART kitchen

mix together / heat up a little olive oil in an iron frying pan until hot / fry in spoonfuls until golden and turn

you can make them any size / i like a 3 inch diameter zucchini fritter

serve with a dollop of sour cream

&&&&&

instead of the cheese use chopped pecans for a nice crunch

or both

experiment with endless variations on a theme of Zucchini Fritter

this is the way Italians, esp, Venetians, like to have liver

get some nice liver, calves if possible, but the liver i have been getting from The Geezer is nice and tender

first slice some onions in sort of crescent shapes / i use sweet onions / and carmelize them in a butter/oliveoil combination / season with salt and pepper

cut the liver into bite-size pieces / when the onions are cooked but still crisp, not mushy, add the liver pieces and cook gently on both sides

add some Marsala wine and cook gently until the liver is "done" / or not quite done / over cooked liver is tough and icky

add some chopped fresh Italian parsley at the end

enjoy

Marsala is a sweet wine but very nice / can be used instead of sherry in other recipes / and for deserts like zabaione (made with egg yolks and sugar)

we are fond of liver and onions fixed this way and also liver and bacon

Mrs. Geezer is now making nitrate free bacon / it is not smoked / she uses maple syrup / it is yummy

rich and delicious

perfect for a chill rainy first day of spring when the Jeep Safari is in town and you want to stay at home all day

lucky me i wake up to rain and find enough potatoes, leeks, chicken broth on hand to whip together a warm and comforting soup

saute in butter/oliveoil combination some leeks until they are slightly carmelized
add a big clove of garlic minced
in a separate pot boil up the potatoes that have been cut up / when they are almost done / drain them and when cool enough slip them out of their skins unless you want the skins in the soup

add the cooked potatoes to the leeks, pour in enough chicken broth to cover and cook some more

add chicken broth as necessary

when cooled down a little puree in a blender

potatoes suck up salt so dont season until you are ready to eat at which time you can also add some cream or some half and half

season with black pepper and plunk a lunk of butter in your bowl of soup

yum

skaterina wants to live a half a day at a time / okay with me

morning can be her morning but morning will be my afternoon

while she chugs around "Getting Things Done" i have the

afternoon snack : buttermilk banana date shake

and then i roast a chicken with rice and gravy / salad from the garden

dessert, if any, will be just before hammock meditation time

sure is a good thing the hammock is big enough for both of us

if you want ethnic food that isnt california/mexican or chinese/american or fake/japanese you have to make it yourself so i got a pound of ground pork at The Old Geezer Meat Market to make pork dumplings to go with the Scallion Pancakes i fancied

once thawed out the whole pound of pork needed to be used / i promise not to refreeze meat / i promise

so there was a substantial amount meaning there were fried wontons for dinner last night and more of them in the morning / in three different shapes / kinda like pasta comes in a variety of shapes / some of them steamed instead of fried / they stuck to the steamer so that was a bust

later there were some Maryland Crab Cakes from the shifty markup deli case / this is a new item / i said to the clerk I grew up in Maryland so i am taking a chance here

yeah

i think they forgot the Old Bay Seasoning

lettuce and arugula fresh from the garden dressed with balsamic vinegar and spanish olive oil

topped it all off with a left over Peace Pop from Ben and Jerry / erp

it must be the Ides of March

for breakie : cream of tomato soup with buttered toast cubes

for lunch : spelt tortillas burrito with artichoke dip, spinach, bacon, jalapeno monterey jack cheese

tea time : Immune Support tea with high desert honey (you know her!)

for dinner : pork wontons with vietnamese dip

for bedtime snack : zucchini cake

midnite ramblings : hot milk with ghee

nighty night

not that i went to that many Italian weddings but the whole time i lived in Rome i never heard of this soup

the first time i knew of it was on a PBS fund raising where they featured cooking shows and had local women come in and make their favorite dishes / one of them was an Italian wedding soup / and oh yes, Giada diLaurentiis made it one day on Everyday Italian

so we had a CAN of Campbell's Italian Wedding Soup

feeling lazy after the weekend party / er / art walk

it is chicken broth with spinach, little tiny soft meatballs, and small round things that were pasta or a form of cous cous

canned foods make me burp

the aforementioned zucchini cake made with spelt flour and three eggs instead of two that stuck in the pan and so got to stay home is Really Really Good / rich, dark, moist, and tasty

i made a second cake the usual way with unbleached flour, two eggs, and it came out swell and got to go to the Art Walk where it was devoured and much appreciated

just thought you'd like to know from now on i will prolly use spelt flour and three eggs and maybe some other kind of cake pan

Trivia Wins again

i am making Eat Art for the Art Walk tonight / this zucchini cake is one of my favorites

preheat oven 350 degrees

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 cups sugar

mix all the dry ingredients together

in another bowl whisk together

2 eggs
1/3 cup orange juice
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsps orange zest
2 tsps peeled and grated fresh ginger
1 tsp vanilla extract

add the wet ingredients to the dry

the fold in 1 and 1/2 cups of grated zucchini
and 1/2 cup of chopped hazlenuts

have a tube or bundt pan buttered and flowered

bake for 45 minutes or until tester comes out not gooey

cool on rack for ten minutes before turning out onto a serving plate

#####

okay, here's how i changed this recipe today :

i used spelt flour instead of the usualy unbleached organic flour
bc spelt tends to be dry i added 3 eggs instead of 2

reduced sugar to 1 cup (dont like it too sweet)

pecans instead of hazlenuts

it is out of the oven now / to see if it will exit the pan nicely

hmmmmmmm

fooey / it stuck in the pan but o boy is it ever good moist and delicious / perhaps the 3rd egg was 1 egg too many

patch it together and smear some cream on top tonight

these are special

1/2 cup amaranth flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter that has been cubed and chilled / like in the freezer for awhile
3 oz cream cheese also cubed and chilled

pulse it all together in a food processor

well, i seem to need to add some water to this in order to make it ball up into a dugh

pour in a TB or 2 or 3 until the dough comes together in a ball

shape the ball into a 6 inch long log

wrap it up and chill for at least an hour / up to over night

slice the log into 24 slices 1/4 inch thick

press each round into a mini muffin pan / i cant believe i am writing this

bake at 400' until golden

did you butter the muffin tins ?

let them cool enough and they will pop right out of the tins and be ready to have some yummy stuff to cradle

what to put in them / i think lightly carmelized finely chopped leeks with a dab of kefir cheese on top

stayed tuned

here's a nifty way to make chicken salad

put the chicken in the food processor / whir it up

put it in a bowl and add your usual suspects

here it is finely diced celery / maybe some finely chopped sweet onion
cupola gobs of mayo / best foods or hellmans or better yet homemade

it is so creammy

i have some on a plate with olives and pickles and Is it possible to eat chicken salad without potato chips ?

please

%%%%%%

i always just diced the chicken / then i saw this tip in a weekly colour supplement

see ! treasures abound / wherever you are / wherever you look / like the tortillas dipped in egg/milk/chopped parsley in an otherwise ordinary cooking magazine

during my hammock meditation chicken salad sprang to mind / i already had a couple of already cooked chicken breasts so it was up and atom / now i think of more things to do with the finely minced chicken / like mixed with taco sauce and folded into a wonton skin

TACO-TONS

or

fried then dipped in the kind of guacamole that is made of an avocado / some ortega green chiles / some sour cream / some lemon juice and intensity of garlic

zap it all in a blender or processor or whupp it up in a bowl with a wooden spoon and elbow grease

or

an oriental version with the chicken flavored with some salty soy product / smile / with some bean sprouts or what nots like scallions / fry em up and dip in my favorite dipping sauce

ciao / the kitchen beckons

when the nova scotians car broke down here in moab last winter so they had to stay a week instead of a drive by as they sped on to arizona ~~~~

~~~~~ one of the dinners i made for us all was Roasted Duck

i saw the Barefoot Contessa (not Ava Gardner but a plump gal on the food network / she is quite cute) anyway she roasted a duck after simmering it in water for an hour to get the fat out of the duck

well, i've done better duck

but i saved the duck simmer water / put the duck carcass back in with whatever chicken bones had accumulated in the ice box and cooked up a rich quart of Duck Stock

which i pulled out the other day to thaw

o boy

i chopped some fresh linguini to be The Noodles

i cannot say more / it was Indescribably Delicious

now how did i season the duck ? havent a clue ... not a memory

musta bin somepin good / smile

we cant eat cheese every day so today's spelt tortilla dipped in egg/milk/chopped parsely will be slathered with garlicky artichoke dip (scroll down for recipe) instead of with cheese and a handful of fresh arugula and tomato/garlic jam

maybe a little sour cream on the side to smooth over the garlic intensity

one of those spelt tortillas dipped in egg/milk/chopped parsley fried til slightly golden yellow on one side then turn it over to cook the other side whilst placing on top so it will melt a handful of monterey jack cheese flecked with red and green jalapeno peppers and couple of spoonloads of tomato/garlic jam

roll up

and eat

this is almost too good to be true

some daze we eat by colour / today is Greens

for breakfast a bunch of freshly picked arugula from the garden with cilantro laden yogurt sauce left over from last night's spiced lamb burritos

spinach soup and steamed asparagus for lunch

snack : buttermilk banana date shake with a sprig of mint for green

2 banana 2 dates been around long enough to be quite sugary / they are Medjool dates btw / and 10 oz buttermilk made with buttermilk powder (free of alien ingredients found in a quart of shifty markup buttermilk) a cube or two of ice

use a blender / not the food processor / that dope skaterina

afternoon tea / weightless tea and a glass of Marsala wine / no, not green, but what the heck

for dinner pork GREEN chile and avocado burritos

made with the spelt tortillas dipped in egg/milk to which handful of chopped parsely or arugula has been added and fry quickly on both sides in a pan with some olive oil

put the egg/milk in a dish wide enough for the whole tortilla to fit in / i am using 10 inch spelt tortillas

or tear em up / do whatever strikes your fancy

anyway that's The Green Day

this is yum num nummie

one can (14 oz) artichokes (i usually get the quartered ones) drained
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
garlic to taste / as much or as little as you like
pinch of cayenne
lemon juice to taste

whir it all up in the food processor

no food processor ? then chop the artichoke hearts after draining them
mix everything together / it's okay to have lumps and bumps

this dip can also be baked (325') until a little bubbly and served warm

my preference for serving this dip is on crisply toasted slices of baguette or focaccia that have been lightly brushed with olive oil

skaterina is having a show at the March Art Walk and will be serving this dip as well as something else we havent thought of yet

buon appetito