Truman Capote once wrote, “The difference between the very rich and regular people is that the rich serve such marvelous vegetables.”

Obvious snobbery aside, was Truman making an observation on the socio-economics and agro-economics of setting a table? After all, to invest more resources in order to enhance the quality of a low-calorie food suggests that one’s resources are not terribly constrained. To prioritize the pleasure of a ‘marvelous vegetable’ over the utility of a higher-calorie comestible does seem luxurious… until you do the math on a farm-share or CSA membership.

I’ve paid $125 to split a quarter share at Allandale Farm in Brookline, with my dear friend, LN. For the $250 combined we get a weekly box-plus (they always hand over another bag of vegetables) to share for 20 weeks. The quality and variety are, to use Truman’s description, marvelous, and I do agree with his sentiment that the difference between an ordinary and an extraordinary table can be found in the quality (or marvelousness) of the vegetables served.

So, for those of you that think that farm-shares are just for trustafarians or the Bohemian-rich, do the math and you may be surprised to find that even us not-very-rich-folk can serve marvelous vegetables, too.

Below are a few tips for enjoying truly marvelous vegetables, but, please, don’t try these techniques with sub-par fare. The techniques are simple and designed to enhance existing flavor, not add any, so, if you’re using crap vegetables with no flavor, you’ll just end up with hot or slightly-warmed crap vegetables with no flavor.

Enjoy!

Roasted Tomatoes – Drizzle cherry tomatoes with olive oil, salt & pepper and roast in the oven or toaster oven at 300° for 10 minutes.

Roasted Carrots – Chop carrots into ½ inch slices. Toss with olive oil or dot with butter and 1 Tsp-1Tbls. (depending on how many carrots you’re using) five spice powder, salt & pepper, and raw sugar. Roast in a 350-400° oven or toaster oven for 20-30 minutes.

Beets – Peel beets, toss with olive oil , salt & pepper. Roast in a 350° oven for 30 minutes

Corn – Remove the kernels from the cob. Saute in 1 part olive oil and 1 part butter over medium heat for 10-15 minutes (longer if you like your corn mushier). Season with salt & pepper. Optional: Add chopped basil, goat cheese, feta cheese, thyme, cayenne pepper, or any other flavorings that you like (not all at once, in case that wasn’t obvious). Corn makes a great canvas for your culinary creativity and preferences.

I know, I know, it’s been WAY too long since I’ve posted. And, I could sit here and list out all of my excuses – crushingly busy at work, wedding season, the fact that my un-air-conditioned apartment has been topping 100 degrees lately, and the idea of sitting with my laptop in my lap makes me want to tear off my own skin – but I won’t.

I will tell you that, despite the internet-evidence, I have actually been cooking quite a bit. My farm share, split with the former Miss LM, now Mrs. LS (!) started a month or so ago, and I’ve been having such fun playing with new recipes, including the minty mashy peas (and about 12 variations on them) from a previous post, spinach pasta with roasted beets in a cream sauce, creamed cauliflower, veal scaloppine with butter and shallots, and, most recently, dear CS’s surprising and addictive basil ice cream.

Other major updates include the addition of Mini-Cooper to the Besotted kitchen… no, not a car, but the cuddliest, cutest little bundle of joy, care of CS; the aforementioned wedding of Miss LM to Jimmy; and the start of my cooking class series. The first class, held in late June at the Boston Center for Adult Education, included recipes featuring fruits & veggies that are harvested in the mid-June to mid-July time frame – lots of greens, carrots, berries, green onions, and peas.

The next class will be held August 25th, and, while I haven’t decided on the curriculum yet, I’m leaning heavily towards a tomato, corn, and peaches-heavy curriculum – think tomato, basil, and ricotta tarts, peach pies, sauteed corn, grilled corn with queso (a la Toro), and light, fresh tomato sauces. This is just a sneak preview for what I’m thinking of – if there are any suggestions, now’s the time to send them. And, if you’re in the Boston area, you can sign up for the class here.

Now, for the main event – this minty, mashy pea recipe is as versatile as it is tasty. I’ve spooned it straight out of a cup for lunch, spread it on toasted nan for dinner, or covered little toasts for an appetizer, and it all works beautifully. Not only that, but most of the ingredients, even the peas, as I near-disasterously discovered during my cooking class, are subject to substitution. Toss in basil, mint, parsley, or other herbs at will; add more or less garlic, depending on your taste; capers would go nicely, if you like them. The only items that are not optional are the feta and greek yogurt – they really make this dish.

Minty Mashy Peas, Serves 4
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

1 Clove Garlic, minced
1 Bunch Mint, chopped
Juice of 1 Lemon
1 ½ cups frozen or shelled peas or sugar snap peas
1 Bunch Scallions, chopped
4 Tbls. Olive Oil
½ lb. Greek Yogurt
½ lb. Feta

Preparation:

Set water to boil in large sauce pan and boil peas for 3 minutes and drain.

Put the minced garlic and lemon juice in a bowl and set aside.

Put the yogurt and feta in a bowl, mash well to blend and set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, chop the peas, garlic and lemon juice, scallions, and mint until they’re a lumpy consistency.

Add the pea mixture to the yogurt and cheese, mix well, and season with salt & pepper.

Enjoy!

So, first of all… I’m back! From Vegas (yes, again, but this time for work), and from settling into the new job…

So, for this first post since the little Besotted break, I wanted to pay homage to some fantastic holiday gifts I received this year and in years past. From friends who had only known me a couple of months to a couple of decades, they were all perfectly suited for me, and happened to have made their way – in one way or another – into this Pork Chop with Fresh Bay Salt, Crackling, and Squashed Purple Potatoes dish.

First, the dish is adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Kitchen, given to me 3 years ago by my then-new-boss, Di. This was a charming custom that I had not, as of yet, been made acquainted with… a lovely and personal gift given at the end of the year by my boss as a “Thank You” for all of the hard work. In the end, I received what was soon to become one of my favorite cookbooks – both beautiful and hugely functional – and Di received a truck-load of gratitude in the form of late nights and weekend work. A happy win-win situation.

With salt as a main feature in the dish, I forewent the standard kosher salt and opted for the Black Lava Salt, one of a selection of fancy-pants salts given to me this past Chanukka-mas by dear CS. Super-pungent and really impressive-looking, the Black Lava Salt adds a certain special piquant flavor to the dish…

Plus, like the final gift, it’s definitely a conversation starter. I store my fancy-pants salts in the most ME-gift, I may have ever received. They’re part funky (it’s from Anthropologie, which, if you haven’t seen my homage to their aprons, is my second favorite store… right behind Barneys), part culinary , part dorky, and part dry wit…. They’re a selection of numbered spice jars from Anthro, but, what makes them so incredibly cool, is that my darling sisters opted for the sequence “1, 1, 2, 3, 5”. I love the humor, and, for those of you that don’t get it, or didn’t study math in any super-advanced way, scroll to the bottom of the recipe to see the joke… er… it’s not so much a joke, as something that only mathematicians would find humorous, but scroll down anyway.

Double Thick Pork Chop with Bay Salt and Squashed Purple Potatoes

Adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Kitchen

Total Prep Time: 1 Hour 15 Minutes

Ingredients:

For the Pork Chops:

4 Double-Thick Pork Chops (½ pound, each)

Black Lava Salt, Sea Salt, or Kosher Salt

Black Pepper

2 Tbls. Olive Oil

3 Tsp. Thyme Leaves

1 Tsp. Mustard Seed

10 Bay Leaves

For the Squashed Purple Potatoes:

1lb. Purple Potatoes

Black Lava Salt

For the Apple Cider Sauce:

1 Cup Apple Cider

1 Tbls. Whole Grain Mustard

4 Tbls. Crème Fraiche

2 Tbls. Butter

Preparation:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, par-boil the purple potatoes for 15 minutes, drain once finished, and set aside.

After adding the potatoes to the pot, preheat the oven to 400° with the saute pan inside, to heat up along with the oven.

Adding purple potatoes to the mix is more fun!

Score the skin of the pork chops and season with salt and pepper. Drain the par-boiled potatoes. Once the oven has finished pre-heating, remove the saute pan, add the olive oil to it, add the pork chops, thyme, and potatoes to the saute pan and return to the oven for 15 minutes.

While the pork and potatoes are cooking, pulverize the mustard seed, black lava salt, and bay leaves with a mortar and pestle until very fine.

Remove the pork chops from the oven and set on a chopping block and remove the potatoes and thyme to a bowl. Heat the saute pan over medium heat on the stove top.

Drizzle the pork chops with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with the bay leaf mustard spice. Cook the pork chops, two at a time, in the saute pan for 3-4 minutes on each side.

While the pork chops cook on the stove top, bring the cider and mustard to a boil in a small sauce pan. Allow to boil for 4-5 minutes in order to reduce the quantity by half. Add the crème fraiche, and continue to boil for another 5-7 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the butter. Set aside.

I love, LOVE this stuff!

Once the pork chops have finished cooking, lay each on a plate. Add a side of purple potatoes, mash slightly with a fork, and add a small sprinkling of black lava salt. Drizzle both pork chops and potatoes with the apple cider sauce, serve, and enjoy!

* 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 is Fibonacci’s sequence, where the first two numbers are 0 and 1, and each remaining number is the sum of the previous two. It takes a true dork to appreciate the hilarity and thoughtfulness of this gift.

When I was little and learning to play the piano, there was one song that I loved more than any other, and I played it constantly. So much so, that just playing it became kind of pedestrian, and I had to do something to jazz it up…. So I timed myself, to see how fast I could play the piece from beginning to end.  It came out sounding just as you would expect a song to sound that a 6 year-old was speed-racing her way through, but I had to do something to make it challenging, and speed was my handicap of choice.

Skip ahead a couple of decades, and I’m not exactly the little pianist hellion banging away on the keys with no thought other than speed…. But, I’m not that far away from her, either. Nice 10 mile commute to work? I’ll ride my bike. Beach read? I’ll take Sophie’s Choice over Sophie Kinsella. Friends over for a work-night dinner? I’ll flake out and make this pan-seared salmon with luscious green sauce, which takes 30 minutes if I’m slow and 15 minutes if I’m in crazy speed-demon mode.

As much as I love a challenge, there are certain restraints of the space/time continuum that I can’t overcome – namely that I am required to be 15 miles outside the city until at least 5 o’clock and plan to serve dinner at 6:30, which gives me approximately 30 minutes to prepare something guest-worthy. And, this salmon dish works perfectly .

Lightly cooked salmon is brightened with a really pungent and tangy green sauce, consisting of fresh herbs, lemon, garlic, and, if it suits your taste, anchovies. It tastes way more decadent than the prep time or calorie count suggest, and, is just different enough to be really noteworthy.

Enjoy!

Pan-Seared Salmon with Luscious Green Sauce, Serves 2

Adapted from Caprial’s Bistro Style Cuisine

Prep Time: 20 Minutes

Cooking Time: 10 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 30 Minutes

Ingredients:

For the Salmon:

2 6oz. Salmon Fillets

Salt & Pepper

3 Tbls. Olive Oil

For the Green Sauce:

1 Cup Basil Leaves, chopped

¼ Cup Mint, chopped

½ Cup Parsley, chopped

3 Tbls. Capers

1 Lemon, juiced and zested

2 Anchovies, chopped or 1 Tsp. Anchovy Paste

3 Cloves Garlic, minced very finely

Salt & Pepper to taste

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°. Heat the olive oil in a large, oven-proof pan over medium-high heat until just smoking, about 2-3 minutes, depending on how quickly your stove heats up.

While the oil is heating, liberally salt and pepper your salmon fillets.

Once the oil is just smoking, add your fillets to the pan and sear for 2 minutes on each side.

While the fillets are searing, place the garlic, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a medium-sized bowl and mix well to cover the garlic with the lemon.

Once the fillets are done searing on the stove top, transfer the pan to the oven and cook for an additional 8 minutes.

While the fillets are baking, add the rest of the green sauce ingredients to the bowl and mix well; the lemon juice will ‘cook’ the garlic enough to take the sting out, but be sure that your garlic is minced well – no big chunks!

Once the fillets are done remove from the oven plate, and heap the luscious green sauce on top. Enjoy!

Pancakes are so much fun because 1) there’s virtually no screwing them up 2) you can customize them to taste and look like just about anything your little heart desires.

One morning I woke up and felt like doing two things – eating some chocolate for breakfast (not something I recommend often, but a craving is a craving) and establishing culinary racial harmony. In fairness, I’m no hero, I really just felt like the chocolate, but then thought it would be fun to do chocolate chip vanilla pancakes on one side, and some chocolatey pancakes on the other

For the chocolatey pancakes, I cheated a bit and just added some fancy hot chocolate mix to Sweetstacks batter – they were light, fluffy, chocolatey, and delicious.

For the second, I took my favorite vanilla pancake recipe, which makes simultaneously weighty and fluffy pancakes (don’t ask me how… actually, you can, it’s probably the abundance of creams and baking powder) and added Ghirardelli chocolate chips to the batter. Again, not something that I would recommend on a regular basis, but when nothing but chocolate will do, either of these options will satisfy an early Saturday morning craving.

One note – every pancake recipe I have suggests mixing the dry ingredients separately from the wet, but I personally don’t like an extra dish to wash, have experimented with combining in the same bowl, and found the results to be just as delicious as when they’re kept separate.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Chocolate Chip Pancakes, Yields 8

Prep Time: 25 Minutes
Total Prep Time: 25 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup Flour
2 Tbls. Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp. Baking Powder
1 Tsp. Salt
½ Cup Crème Fraiche or Sour Cream
½ Cup Milk
2 Eggs
1 Tsp. Vanilla
1 Cup Chocolate Chips
Butter for frying

Preparation:

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, and baking powder. Mix in the salt, crème fraiche, milk, eggs, and vanilla until the batter is even and all dry ingredients incorporated into the wet.

Melt ½ Tbls. of butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Once melted, pour the batter onto the frying pan – the trick to even-ish circular pancakes is to pour the batter into the same spot. It spreads out much more evenly than if you try to pour in a circle.

Once you start to see little air bubbles around the sides and on the top (after 2-3 minutes), turn the heat down a degree or two, flip your pancakes, and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Continue with the rest of the batter, remembering to turn the heat back up to medium for the first side.

Drown in maple syrup and enjoy!

Saturday and Sunday mornings have a certain routine Chez Besotted – wake up, snooze, wake up, snooze, wake up, make coffee, make bacon & eggs, eat. I would never want anything to disrupt the rhythm and tradition of the first 6 activities, but, every once in awhile, even my beloved bacon & eggs get a bit stale.

Mixing it up with pancakes or muffins can be fun, but my absolute favorite breakfast pastry is a hot, buttery scone. If your only exposure to scones is Starbucks ersatz leaden imposters, try a homemade (or real bakery) version, and you’ll see how far from reality the S-bux kind are.

I made my first scone recipe out of the original Barefoot Contessa cookbook, and instantly fell in love with this puff of delicious, buttery flaky goodness. Whether made with fruit, maple syrup and oatmeal, or cheese, scones make an unbelievably special treat, particularly on blustery winter weekend mornings.

The recipe below is a personal concoction of dried cherries, cream, and ginger. A little sweet a little spice, and a little silken creaminess make a tremendous scone. Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Cherry and Ginger Cream Scones, Yields 12

Prep Time: 45 Minutes

Baking Time: 25 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 70 Minutes

Ingredients:

4 Cups Flour

2 Tbls. Sugar

2 Tbls. Baking Powder

2 Tsp. Salt

1 ½ Cups Butter

5 Eggs

1 Cup Heavy Cream

¾ Cup Dried Sour Cherries

1 Tbls. Candied Ginger

2 Tbls. Fresh Ginger, chopped

2 Tbls. Ground Ginger

Splash Milk

Raw Sugar

Preparation:

Before you do anything, get your butter and eggs prepared by beating 4 of the eggs and chopping the butter into small cubes (about ½ inch square). Once they’re done, put the eggs and butter back into the fridge to keep them extra cold – for that matter, keep the cream in the refrigerator until you need it.

Once you’re ready to go, preheat the oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Do all of the following actions very quickly, as you want the ingredients as cold as possible….

Add the butter pieces and mix on low speed until the butter is broken up into gravelly pieces (no bigger than a pea).

Add the eggs, fresh ginger, ground ginger, candied sugar, and heavy cream and mix until just blended. Stir in the sour cherries with a wooden spoon.

Dump the dough out onto a well-floured surface with well-floured hands – the dough is very sticky, so use as much flour as you need in small increments, but be careful not to make the dough too dry.

Flour a rolling pin and roll the dough out to a thickness of ¾ of an inch. Using a 2.5-3.5 inch cutter round (depending on the width that you desire), cut out rounds of dough and arrange on the baking sheet.

Once the dough rounds are lined up on the baking sheet, mix the last egg with a splash of milk to create the egg wash. Brush the dough with the egg wash, sprinkle with the raw sugar, and put into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Remove from the oven, allow to cool, split, butter, serve, and enjoy!

I heart brownies in a big way. Nigella Lawson, the cookbook author from whom this recipe has been adapted (begged, borrowed, and slightly stolen), touts as one of their highest virtues the fact that they can be whipped up in a matter of minutes. I would add to that sterling quality the fact that, unlike so many other “easy” desserts and confections, your sink will not look like a dirty dish graveyard – one bowl, one pan, one spoon, and one baking dish is all that this recipe requires.

Now that I’ve sold you on the recipe, I will relate a small pet peeve of mine, and that is the habit that we have of labeling recipes as the “perfect” or “best” such-and-such. In my quest for a decent brownie recipe, I came across a multitude that claimed to be “the best” or “perfect”, which is an obvious impossibility, given their wide variety. I balk at the supposition that the recipe author knows my tastes, or, worse, is assuming that their interpretation of the pinnacle for that particular foodstuff is superior to all others. It irks me, and, in an unsurprising development, I realized that I was guilty of the same crime, on my “Best” Ginger Cookie post. The morals of this story are that we don’t know each others’ tastes and I am a hypocrite.

This is all a relevant prelude to this very good brownie recipe. I wouldn’t ever call it perfect, because, if you like your brownies cakey, or light and fluffy, this won’t suit you at all. You may even label it the worst brownie recipe. If, on the other hand, you like your brownies to have a fair amount of heft, stick-to-your-ribs, and chew like they were fighting to stay in your mouth, then you might give this recipe a decent review. If you also happen to like when people say “there’s something special about this” because it has a particular flavor that they enjoy but can’t quite place, then you’ll rave about this recipe. These brownies are warm, comforting, moist, dense, and have a certain twinkle of flavor that can not be easily placed. Read down below to see the secret ingredient and, as always, enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Secret Ingredient Brownies, Yields 12-15

Adapted from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Prep Time: 15 Minutes

Baking Time: 25 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 40 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 ¼ Cups Butter, softened

8 oz. Best Bittersweet Chocolate,

4 Eggs

2 Tsp. Best Quality Vanilla

2 Tsp. Vietnamese Cinnamon (secret ingredient!)

1 ¼ Cups Sugar

1 Cup Flour

¾ Tsp. Salt

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350° and prepare the brownie pan (13x9x2.5 inches) by lining with parchment paper.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a medium-sized sauce pan over medium heat. Keep an eye on it the chocolate as it melts, and make sure that the mixture doesn’t get too hot. Once melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, vanilla, and sugar. Add the flour and salt and mix well. Add the slightly cooled chocolate and mix vigorously.

Pour the mixture into the lined brownie pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Remove the baked brownies from the oven and let them sit in the pan for 5-10 minutes before cutting, serving, and enjoying!

]]> http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/27/secret-ingredient-brownies/feed/ 4 http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/24/sweet-potato-gnocchi-with-brown-butter-thyme-sauce/ http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/24/sweet-potato-gnocchi-with-brown-butter-thyme-sauce/#comments Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:24:50 +0000 Jessica http://besottedgourmet.com/?p=2105

I’m always curious to know what people shop for in a supermarket and why? What one person considers a staple, another considers a rare occasion treat. I remember being 13 years old, being at a friend’s house, and they had an enormous, family-sized bag of M&Ms in the pantry… 2 hours later, they didn’t, because I had managed to polish off the vast majority of the bag – I was both permanently hungry and had a much faster metabolism as a teenager. Sadly, only one of those things has changed… but I digress…

The reason for my voracious and greedy appetite was the fact that a bag of M&Ms never entered my own pantry. This was a treat and luxury that I could never have dreamed of – candy, open and available at a moment’s notice – and the cunning little imp in me couldn’t pass up the opportunity to over-indulge.

15 years later and I marvel at what others keep in their pantries, and have no doubt that my own shopping habits raise a few eyebrows. I was walking through the grocery store last week, passed a display of Parmesan Cheese, and mindlessly picked one up, as it is a critical staple in my household. It wasn’t until PT looked into my cheese drawer and pointed out that I had 7 different cheeses in there that it occurred to me that I may be deeply strange in this particular respect… possibly in others, but we’re talking about cheese right now.

I have two bricks of Parmesan, an aged Gouda, Mahon, Emmenthaler, Gruyere, and two aged Cheddars. That’s normal, right?

They make a great snack, and they’re awesome when you have to whip up something comforting and cheesy in a pinch, like a Sweet Grilled Cheese, Aglio e Olio, or Sweet Potato Gnocchi, which is just little bundles of amazing deliciousness.

I was a little intimidated when I first decided to make these little orange-jeweled gnocchi, but it turned out to be far easier than some of the more ambitious doughy items I’ve attempted (ahem, pie crust – not easy when you have less than 2 square feet of counter space), and it’s instantly impressive when you tell people that you made your own pasta.

Toss these in a little brown butter with thyme and serve with a big salad or hearty winter vegetables for a delicious mid-week dinner.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Brown Butter Thyme Sauce, Serves 4

Adapted from East Village Kitchen

Prep Time: 1 Hour

Total Prep Time: 1 Hour

Ingredients:

For the Gnocchi:

1 1lb. Yam

6oz. Ricotta Cheese

½ Cup Parmesan Cheese, grated

1 Tbls. Brown Sugar

1 Tsp. Salt

1/2 Tsp. Nutmeg

1 1/3 Cup Flour

For the Browned Butter Thyme Sauce:

½ Cup Butter

3 Tsp. Thyme, chopped

Salt & Pepper to taste

Preparation:

Prepare the yam by placing it in a large pot filled with cold salt water; bring the water to boil with the yam inside and allow to boil for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, remove the yam and allow to cool until just warm to the touch and set the boiled water aside.

Scrape the yam flesh into a large bowl and add the ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt, brown sugar, combine well with a fork.

Add the flour, ½ cup at a time and blend until the mixture is soft and dough-like.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface, and, slowly rock the dock back and forth between the the bottom of your palms and heels of your hand. You’ll see it slowly start to elongate and become rope-like. As much as possible, focus on any areas of the dough that are remaining thick and try to get the rope’s width as even as possible.

With a sharp knife, cut off 1-inch pieces of the dough and set aside on a lined cookie sheet. I’m boring, and leave my little gnocchi unadorned, but you can feel free to mark with an insignia (fork tines, back of spoon, a personal stamp, etc.)

Bring the pot of yammy water to boil again, add a bit more salt, and toss the gnocchi in in batches – just be sure not to crowd the pot, and cook for 5-6 minutes.

Remove from the pot with a slotted spoon, place in a bowl and cover with tin foil to keep warm.

Meanwhile, get on making your brown butter sauce by heating the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat for 5 minutes, until it starts to bubble and turn brown. Skim some of the bubbles off of the butter and add the thyme (be careful, it will crackle and pop!). Turn the heat down to the lowest setting, just to keep warm while you cook the rest of your gnocchi.

Once all of the gnocchi are cooked, toss in with the brown butter sauce, mix around, plate, serve, and enjoy!

]]> http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/24/sweet-potato-gnocchi-with-brown-butter-thyme-sauce/feed/ 4 http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/13/fettuccine-with-pecan-herb-sauce/ http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/13/fettuccine-with-pecan-herb-sauce/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:32:55 +0000 Jessica http://besottedgourmet.com/?p=2101

In a thoroughly unsurprising development, the holiday season has left me with less time than I’d like to do the things I enjoy most – namely putter around the kitchen and cook. I eat out too much, go to too many parties, and order delivery too often in an effort to save time for gift-wrapping, which inevitably takes 5 times longer than it takes the average all-thumbed clutz, that I end up cooking less during this home and hearth-oriented season than usual.

And, quite frankly, eating out so much sounds fun, but it is a bit off-putting. I like my own cooking, I like creating something, I like knowing what goes into it, I like being in my kitchen and doing the familiar dance around my pantry and stove, and not doing it makes me feel out of sorts.

Which is why it’s important to have recipes like Fettuccine with Pecan Herb Sauce that are the amazing combination of delicious, easy, quick-to-make, and healthy – in short, it gives me the face time with my kitchen that I crave and results in a pretty fantastic meal. Win, win…and…. win.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Fettuccine with Pecan Herb Sauce, Serves 4

Adapted from Caprial’s Bistro Style Cuisine

Prep Time: 25 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 25 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup Pecans

½ Cup Parmesan, grated

3 Cloves Garlic, chopped

1/3 Cup Thyme Leaves, chopped

1/3 Cup Basil Leaves, chopped

2/3 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

1lb. Fettuccine

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 250° and put a pot of salted water onto boil. Spread the pecans out on a baking sheet and toast in the oven (or a toaster oven) for 10 minutes or until fragrant… once you start to smell their toasty goodness, they’re ready to come out.

Once the water has started to boil, add the fettuccine and cook for 8-10 minutes or according to the box instructions, and then, get on making the pecan herb sauce.

Place the toasted pecans, grated parmesan, thyme and basil leaves in the bowl of a food processor or mini-food processor. Chop or pulse until fine. Add the extra-virgin olive oil through the feed tube with the processor running. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Once the fettuccine has finished cooking, drain, but leave the noodles a bit wet, and mix with the pecan herb sauce. Toss well, serve, and enjoy!

]]> http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/13/fettuccine-with-pecan-herb-sauce/feed/ 1 http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/09/sweet-grilled-cheese/ http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/09/sweet-grilled-cheese/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:30:54 +0000 Jessica http://besottedgourmet.com/?p=2094

There are some things that are just WAY too good not to share. Now that I’m free to share some non-Gourmet recipes, I knew that this one had to be my first.

A couple weeks ago I came home from work on a half day, positively ravenous, and in the deepest depths of my love affair with Fall that I seem to go through every year – you know the love affair with Fall when you live in New England, when you day dream of apple-picking, crunching blissfully-colored leaves beneath your feet, dressing in the cuddliest of fabrics and warmest of colors.

Anyway, I wanted something that would stick to my ribs, but that had all the warmth and succor that this season brings – a grilled cheese sounded good, but something really sweet sounded even better… and then it hit me! Sweet grilled cheese!

PT and I had picked up some cinnamon bread from a farm on the North Shore when we went apple-picking, and I still had some left over red wine caramel from the caramel apples that I’d made. A nice cheddar in the fridge, some dried apricots and cranberries in the pantry, and a healthy dose of butter made the perfect, Fall sandwich.

Hearty, savory, and sweet, and, of course, crushingly delicious, this is an absolute must-try sandwich!

Sweet Grilled Cheese, Serves 2

For Sandwich:

4 Slices Cinnamon Bread (or other sweet or sandwich bread)

4 Tbls. Red Wine Caramel (from Red Wine Caramel Apples or see below)

½ Cup Mix of Dried Fruits (apricots, cranberries, apples, etc.)

4 Thick Slices Cheddar Cheesecake

2 Tbls. Butter

For Red Wine Caramel (there will be leftover):

2 Cups Sugar

½ Cup Water

1 ½ Cups Pinot Noir

6 Tbls. Heavy Cream

Preparation:

First, make the red wine caramel….

Bring the sugar and water to boil in a medium-sized sauce pan over medium-high heat, stirring just until the sugar is dissolved, but be sure to let the pan be as the mixture begins to boil.

Meanwhile, set the wine to boil in another small sauce pan over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, until the volume is reduced by half.

After the wine has boiled for 10 minutes, turn the heat down to low to keep warm. Tend to the boiling sugar, swirling the pan, and watching for caramelization – it happens quickly, so keep your eye on it. Once it starts to caramelize, watch for the color to go a deep amber. Once that happens, pour your reduced wine into the pan CAREFULLY – it will bubble up, hiss, and generally make a mess of your stove top, but won’t do any real harm.

Stir the cream into the mixture in well, and put a candy thermometer in the pot. Once the mixture reaches 238°, remove from the heat and let cool until it’s reached 200°.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool and thicken for 5-10 minutes.
Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and then arrange your sandwich.

Smear all slices of bread with a thick helping of the red wine caramel. Arrange two of the cheddar slices for each sandwich on top of the caramel and top with the dried fruit. Put the bread slices together and to form two sandwiches and place in the hot butter in the frying pan.

Cook on each side for 3-5 minutes, remove from the heat, cut in half, serve, and enjoy!