Some 2012 food adventures

The year 2012 had some interesting food moments, some in my kitchen, some from other places. For Valentine’s Day, I made peanut butter- chocolate brownie trifles. Layers of peanut buttery and chocolaty goodness.

 In Turkey, we ate Turkish Delight and drank copious amounts of tea. And our favorite, burek, a flaky pastry stuffed with cheese and sometimes meat and onions.

The was a Neapolitan cooking class where we made some extremely cheesy Pasta alla Siciliana.

In the summer, I really went nuts with trying to make pasta as pretty as possible with as many colorful vegetables as possible. There was also grilled pizza and apple crisp and cold tomato soup.

But the crowning food moment(s) of our summer was Eastern Europe. Burek made several reappearances, much to our delight (the Slavic countries love it, too!). Other delicacies included grape-flavored aloe vera juice, (Lake) Bled cake, Austrian Wiener schnitzel, and Chinese food (sometime you just get tired of Italian). We came home with 5 jars of Ajvar sauce, which is roasted red pepper and eggplant sauce. It doesn’t get much better than that. Oh wait, it does. That would be the 20 or so bottles of wine we had been collecting and had crammed between suitcases in the trunk.

In Slovenia, our host served us fresh trout. I now know how to debone a fish.

In Austria, we found a Vietnamese restaurant that was really good. However, we discovered that neither of us can use chopsticks. I’m pretty sure the waiters were taking pictures of us trying.

Slovakia had egg dumplings that are similar to Italian gnocchi. Very filling and very good.

I’m pretty sure the national seasoning of Hungary is paprika. It was on everything from our eggs at breakfast to the meat at dinner. And it was fabulous. At the Great Market Hall, we had the traditional Langos, kind of like a savory elephant ear with veggies, sour cream, and cheese on top.

The food in Croatia was terrible. So terrible that it wasn’t worth taking a picture of it.

The food in Bosnia and Herzegovina was much better. Whew. During the Iron Curtain era, items from Western culture were not allowed. These included Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, movies, music, etc. The Bosnians really wanted their Coke, so they made a substitute called Cockta. It was actually pretty good and it tasted like vanilla Coke.

Later in the summer, we finally got around to buying an Italian mokapot. How have we lived without it?

When Thanksgiving came around, we decided to start a new tradition and make Pasta Zucca or pasta with pumpkin. It’s the perfect Thanksgiving food! Chicken with honey-cranberry sauce and garlic green beans finished it off. It’s fairly Thanksgiving-y, right?

Stay tuned, 2013 should be just as exciting!

The Lindsays' Illustrated 2012

 What a year 2012 was for the Lindsays!

January
In January we went to visit Hadrian's Villa and the gardens of Villa d'Este outside Rome. We also witnessed some of the most amazing sunsets you've ever seen from our balcony!

February
Welcome to Istanbul, Turkey!

 



March
Tim took sailing lessons and took me along once. The lesson got cancelled, but we walked along the beach and found lots of beautiful shells.

April
In April everything was waking up again and calling us to go hiking. So we did Walk of the Gods along the Amalfi Coast one day and the rim of Carney Park (an extinct volcano) the next.

May
In May I went to Puglia again with the 5th graders, and Ron and Betsy Sears stopped by on their cruise and we took them to the Amalfi Coast.

 

June

The weather was so beautiful that we decided to take a ride on the motorcycle to Sant'Agata dei Goti, a small hill town. We happened upon the Festival del Bacio or the Festival of the Kiss.

July
In July Tim's grandma and brother came and we took them on an epic journey through Tuscany, Cinque Terre, and Rome. We also visited the Solfatara, our local sulfur vocano.

 

 

 

July and August
Then at the end of July, the epic Eastern Europe road trip began. 8 countries, 17 days, a Danube cruise, a bike ride, and a ferry across the Adriatic Sea.

 

 

 

September

Tim went out on the USS Mount Whitney, which is stationed in Gaeta, Italy, about an hour away. I went with some other wives to visit and have dinner.

 

 

October
In October, we did the Walk of the Gods again. It never gets old, though I am... my knee hurts every time!

November
One weekend we went to Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi, a town in the mountains, for the Sagra delle Sagre, or the festival of festivals. Artisians from the region brought their wares, mostly food, and set up around the town. Honorable mentions included apples, olive oil, and torrone, but first prize went to the "hanged cheese", cheese melted over a bbq and spread on bread.

December
We just can't get enough of the Walk of the Gods! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

Let's hope 2013 is as exciting!

Peach Apple Cobbler

The neighbors are remodeling. Right on the other side of my wall. Using jackhammers. After listening to the noise all day, I decided I needed a treat. "Mmm, peach crisp would be good. Wait, I have apples, too!" It's also been cooler the last couple days, so turning on the oven didn't sound so terrible. So google and I set to work to find the perfect recipe, one that doesn't have too many ingredients, or use too much sugar.

I just wanted peaches and apples and something yummy on top. Of course, that is impossible to find. Everything called for copious amounts of butter (I only have 1/4 cup left, oops) or cups and cups of sugar (Tim objects to this). Nothing was right.

How hard could it be, anyway? Apparently not very.

I started slicing and sprinkling and it came out absolutely delicious. Grease the pan you want to use and slice peaches. How many you use depends on how big the pan is. Cover the bottom of the pan with peaches, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Then slice apples thinly and cover the peaches. Sprinkle with maybe a tablespoon of brown sugar. Repeat with peaches. Repeat with apples. Repeat until your pan is almost full.

For the topping, I used bisquick. Yeah, yeah, I'm lazy like that. You could make real biscuit dough if you'd like. I added a couple good shakes of cinnamon to the biscuit dough and then spread it on top of the last layer of apples.

Because I was using my tiny Italian oven for dinner, my cobbler had to wait its turn to be baked, but I think it just made it juicier and let the sugars (what little there was) soak into the fruit more. Once it finally went in the oven, it took about 30 minutes at 350.

Warm with ice cream on top, it was just what I needed. I needed seconds, too.

Good thing there's leftovers, they're jackhammering again.

Stay tuned for the great Eastern European Adventure, commencing Friday. I see schnitzel and goulash in the near future and my mouth is already watering in preparation for it.

Oh, what to make for dinner?

Every summer I have the same problem: it's too hot to cook, but we still have to eat. Currently, my kitchen is already so hot, that if I were to turn the oven on, it very possibly would cook me as well as my food. So here's my question, what do I make for dinner when I'm tempted to simply put an assortment of cereal on the table and say "have at it!"?

Sure, we could always go get pizza...

... but obviously, we do that a lot.

As I grumbled and sighed and tried to come up with a non-life threatening menu, I realized I'm probably not the only person who is having this dilemma. Then I thought, maybe those people might take comfort, not only in my similar struggle, but in using my ideas. So here you go, here's what I've come up with so far.

Day 1: Bacon-onion grilled cheese and cold tomato soup.

Grilled cheese: Cook bacon until crisp, drain; fry thinly sliced onions in leftover bacon grease. To put sandwiches together, layer cheese (I used pepper jack, yummy and spicy), bacon, and onions, butter outside of the bread and cook in a frying pan. The recipe I based this off told me to use mustard inside the sandwiches, but Tim didn't like it. So sauce, no sauce, it's your choice, I'm sure it's good without, too.

Soup: I was short on time, so I made just a can of tomato soup, but once it was hot, I stirred in a couple spoonfuls of sour cream, some milk, and a couple ice cubes to make it cold.

Day 2: BBQed pizzas and Tuscan Bread Salad

Pizza: I'll admit, I finally gave up trying to use the Italian ladies' pizza dough recipe and I've been using a mix. But this time I thought I'd try my mom's recipe because my VERY warm kitchen is a perfect environment for rising dough. It worked! Then I divided the dough into 8 parts, brushed then with olive oil and put them on pieces of foil on the grill until they baked enough so they wouldn't fall through the cracks. After the dough was cooked (about 10 minutes or so), I put on seasoned tomato sauce, assorted veggies, salame, and cheese, and put them back on the grill for about another 10 minutes until the cheese melted. They had a nice charcoal-y flavor.

Salad: I found this in a magazine: Chop leftover, slightly stale French bread into chunks. Then chop tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives and add all of it to a large bowl. (It said to use cheese, too, but I didn't have any and it was good without it.) Then sprinkle with salt and pepper and give it a good drizzle of olive oil, mix and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Day 3: Pasta with vegetables and sausage

I had some leftover pasta fresca (fresh pasta) in the fridge that needed to be eaten. Darn it. While it cooked, I cut up sweet red onions from my "garden", zucchini, red bell pepper, and mushrooms and cooked them in some olive oil and spices (it was a mix, but basil, parsley, oregano, and red pepper flakes would do). I chopped the sausage and added that. Once everything was all cooked, the veggies went on top of the pasta with some fresh tomatoes and basil.



Hope this helps! Also, other ideas are welcome.

Buon appetito!

Pasta alla Siciliana

In Italy, pasta is a main food group. It is cooked differently based on what region you are in. This pasta is called Pasta alla Siciliana, or pasta from Sicily. We refer to it that way, but I've heard that in Sicily, it is called Pasta Norma, or Normal Pasta. Anyway, here is the recipe that got written down on the back of an old gas coupon booklet at the last Italian cooking class. It didn't get baked (you normally would), just because it took so long for the water to boil and people were REALLY hungry.

Pasta alla Siciliana

Ingredients:
Eggplant
1 large jar tomato sauce
Oil (enough to cover eggplant spears)
¼ onion, cut in small slices
Basil
Water (about ½ C per jar of sauce)
Provolone cheese, chopped (make sure it is soft provolone)
Penne pasta

Process:

Slice the eggplant into spears and fry it in a pan in oil.

For sauce, fry onion slices in oil until soft, then add tomato sauce, water, and basil. Cook for 20 minutes.

Boil water, cook pasta until it is al dente. Mix sauce, pasta, and cheese; bake for 10 minutes. Serve topped with eggplant and extra sauce.

Note: Remember that Italian cooks rarely use measures, they just go by how much looks right. This makes about 4 servings, so put in about that much pasta. One eggplant is enough, and you can fry up any leftovers with some garlic and oil and serve it as a side dish.

Buon appetito!

Adventures with peanut butter

I have been having some interesting and tasty encounters with peanut butter lately. I made Tim chocolate/ peanut butter brownies for Valentine's Day. I used just a basic brownie recipe, but added peanut butter to the melted chocolate and mixed in peanut butter chips. I cooked them in a muffin pan for easy serving sizes. Once they were baked, I used a couple to make chocolate peanut butter trifles. These were decadent!

I had been reading in a magazine about making trifles, and I thought I'd try it. They are all about different colors and textures, and the layers should be interesting to look at. I made them in juice glasses so I could see the layers.

So here is my trifle, starting from the bottom:

1. crumbled brownies

2. chocolate pudding

3. peanut butter (melted in the microwave for 30 seconds, so it spreads nicely)

4. mini marshmallows

5. chocolate pudding

6. more brownies

Then I made peanut butter cup cheesecakes. I have been looking at the mini cheesecake crusts at the grocery store and wishing I had a reason to use them. A coworker's birthday was an excellent excuse!

I started out with my basic no-bake cheesecake recipe:

1 can sweetened condensed milk

8 oz cream cheese (room temp.)

1/3 C lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

Mix until well blended. (It fit in exactly 12 of these little crusts.)

Then I melted some baking chocolate and spread it on the bottom and sides of the little crusts. When the chocolate had set, I melted some peanut butter and mixed it with some of the cheesecake mixture and spread it in the pans. It is topped with chocolate chips and chocolate syrup. The white ones are s'mores: chocolate chips on the bottom and cheesecake topped with marshmallows and chocolate sauce.



Turkish delights

Over President's Day weekend, Tim and I took a trip to Istanbul, Turkey, which was a culinary delight. Let's just say we spent a lot of time eating. Everything just looked so interesting! Some things were a little odd, like the super-sticky ice cream made from goat milk that you had to bite and chew. Lunches consisted of kebaps, shaved meat wrapped in a tortilla with french fries and veggies, and we stopped frequently for pomogranite/orange juice.

The first evening I had ravioli, which was stuffed with veal and and topped with a yogurt sauce and oregano. Tim had the daily special, which wasn't worth taking a picture of.

Being February, Turkey was very cold, so we stopped frequently for hot Turkish tea. They had apple tea, lemon tea, and just regular tea, all of which were served in little glasses. It took skill to pick up your cup so you didn't burn your fingers. These teas were instant, but at the spice market, we bought dried apple-chunk tea, which is excellent.

For all you Narnia fans, we did eat Turkish delight. There were lots of different flavors, many had pistachios and they came with little plastic swords for more fun spearing. 

Our mid-afternoon snack consisted of borek, which is the general word for pastries. These particular ones had cheese in them. The one on the left was basically just rolls with cheese melted in them, while the one on the right was more like phyllo dough with cheese baked in layers.

We took a ferry trip down the Bosphorus Strait, and stopped on the Asia side for lunch and a hike up to a castle with views of the Black Sea. Lunch wasn't anything spectacular, but we stopped for the local specialty called lokum. It is little dough balls that are deep fat fried and then rolled in maple syrup.

The Turkish people have an interesting way of making coffee. They keep adding a little to the cup and then cooking it some more until it can float a horseshoe and the bottom half of what is in your cup is made up of grounds. I had it with LOTS of sugar, Tim had no sugar (because that's how the locals take it). At the particular coffee shop we went to, they served it with chocolate to cut the bitterness. They also put chocolate covered coffee beans on the table. We were a little hyper afterwards.

Finally, the last evening in Istanbul, we found a restaurant on Trip Advisor that was out of the touristy section of town and we decided to give it a try. Besides the fact that it was in a slightly creepy part of town and though I was the only female in the restaurant (weird?), the food was outstanding. Appetizers of tomato and cucumber salad and a baked rice thing with chicken and raisins. The main course was thick pita bread with lamb. After we finally finished, having struggled with cutting the bread, we happened to look at the next table and see how those men were eating them. They were tearing the bread and using it to pick up the meat. Ohhhh, that's how you do it! Sheesh, we are such tourists.