Healthy Pizzette with Goat Cheese and Arugula Pesto

CASE: Use up pesto!

Healthy Pizzette with Goat Cheese and Arugula Pesto
1 package whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe's
1 log goat cheese
1 cup arugula pesto
1/4 cup parmesan
any kind of meat in the house

Make a pizza from the dough. Spread arugula, and crumble goat cheese on pizza. Sprinkle the smallest amount of parmesan, with salt and pepper to taste.

HINT: If you're like our household, I eat vegetarian and my fiancee does not. So I always have frozen chicken handy, that I just boil in water. I know, it sounds gross, but really, it's fine b/c I just chop it up and toss it into whatever I'm making. So in this case, I had some leftover in the fridge and I just put it on top of the pizza. It's genius and furthermore, it's healthy! I don't have time to plan what meat to make him, and certainly not the energy to store fresh meat. This way, I buy a huge bag of frozen breasts and I never have to worry about it.

VERDICT: GUILTY OF BEING DELICIOUS!!! Make sure your pizza stone is hot though, ours was a little bit raw. It's hard to make dinner in half an hour!

Arugula Pesto

CASE: Use up leftover arugula when there is no other lettuce in the house! I came across a recipe for butter leaf lettuce pesto, and my life just...changed. There's no other word for it. The idea that you could take butter leaf and make pesto was just so imaginative and clever and foreign to me. I felt my cooking juices reenergized, really. So I thought, I am going to make arugula pesto and that is that.

Arugula Pesto
1 leftover bag arugula
2 raw garlic cloves, smashed
1/2 cup olive oil
3 T milk
2 T sour cream
handful walnuts
salt
pepper
1/4 cup - 1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Carefully blend in a blender. It will take time and a fork, as this is exceptionally thick.

HINT: You might want to put the arugula in little by litte, as it takes FOREVER to blend it. I don't know, but I think the better strategy is to put the liquid materials at the bottom, and the walnuts at the very end.


VERDICT: GUILTY OF BEING DELICIOUS!!! This would be so, SO amazing on steak, I think. I am having house guests next week, and am planning to do a flank steak dinner with this pesto. I'm still mulling over what to serve it with...maybe oven roasted tomatos...maybe a grilled radicchio? Radicchio with a light balsamic dressing? I want the arugula to shine, so I think something peppery wouldn't work. Anyway, I'll probably make a nice jam crostata to go with it, as it is easy and presents so well. There's a french cafe nearby that makes really wonderful gelato, so I will serve it with that.

Steak & Blue Cheese Puff Pastries

CASE: B Cat's parents were meeting my parents for the first time at our place. I needed something to serve with red that was tasty, not too fancy, but nice, and delicious. His parents love steak and blue cheese, so I thought this would be good.

1 package puff pastry
tenderloin or any steak, cooked rare and then finely sliced
caramelized onions (cook red onion down with worcestshire, butter, touch of sugar)
blue cheese
fresh thyme

Thaw pastry. Press into heavily buttered muffin pan. Layer onions at bottom, add meat, sprinkle blue cheese and fresh thyme. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Bake at 400 til you think the meat hit 160. Serve hot or warm.

VERDICT: GUILTY OF BEING DELICIOUS! Everybody thought they were good, even his little sister.

New Brunch Recipe - Bacon Potato Puff Pastry Pie

CASE: Ann sent me this recipe, she tried it out after finding it--can you believe it--in a Williams Sonoma catalogue. She had MALES asking for the recipe. Nuff said.

1 package puff pastry
eggs
cooked bacon
chives
creme fraiche and sour cream
salt
pepper

Thaw puff pastry. Roll out and then fold an edge. Brush with an egg wash. Spread the creme fraiche and sour cream mixture on top. Crack eggs on top, and add cooked bacon. Cook at 400 til cooked. Before serving, add chopped chives, salt and pepper. Looks lovely.

VERDICT: GUILTY OF BEING DELICIOUS. If my cousin Ann is forwarding me a recipe, it's darn good.

Plum & Goat Cheese Tarts

CASE: What to serve with Chicken Riesling?

1 package puff pastry
4 plums, cored and chopped
handful of grapes, chopped
crumbled goat cheese
grated parmesan cheese
walnuts
fresh thyme
salt
butter
pepper

Thaw pastry according to directions. Sautee plums and grapes in jam, sugar, little balsamic vinegar and butter. Press pastry into muffin tins, after generously buttering pan. Place fruit (keep juices out, it'll get too soggy. Reserve the juices and boil down if you want a drizzled sauce on top) in pastry. Chop the walnuts with the thyme very finely. Sprinkle goat cheese and parmesan cheese and finally, the walnut-thyme mixture. Add pepper. Bake at 400 till everything is cooked!

VERDICT: GUILTY OF BEING DELICIOUS. These tasted super savory--not sweet. Perfect appetizers. People raved about them.

Chicken Riesling

CASE: Dinner with Cliff and his new boyfriend. Big Deal. Because: 1. the new boyfriend is a great cook and 2. Cliff is a big francophile so I could make a super French dinner and it would be appreciated!

I did some research and was initially going to do an adapted white wine coq au vin. After looking at Anne Willan's site and just plain old Google, this "Chicken Riesling" thing kept popping up. After reading a ton of recipes, I discovered it's a classic French dish that really gets no love. I think it's because it's so plain. The thing is, it's a PERFECT repetoire dish. By that I mean a dish that I could make for company without any problems, and that could be adapted subtly a 100 different ways so I could use it forever. Oh-and-I-will. This dish was so good, so comforting so WARM. I ended up adapting a Mark Beiderman (sp? The Best Recipes of the World Guy. Bitterman? Writes for the NY Times?) recipe. It's sheer genius, the simplest version I could find. He really narrows it to 5 ingredients but I couldn't help adding a few more.

CHICKEN RIESLING

1 whole chicken cut into parts, avoid rib bones and keep the skin on
1 whole onion chopped in rings
2 stalks celery, finely chopped into little squares
butter
1 bottle Riesling, sweeter is better
2 pinches nutmeg
salt
Fresh lemon juice
sour cream

(AND THAT'S IT!)

Melt butter in large Dutch oven. Add onions, celery and salt. Saute until softened, at least 10 minutes. Tuck the chicken amongst the onion, don't worry about skin side down or anything like that. THEN add enough wine that they're all submerged. Drink the rest of the bottle b/c the hard work is done! Cook for at least 40 minutes, if you cook past 60 minutes then just cook a bit longer so that it doesn't get that chewy stage texture. Finish sauce with a bit of sour cream and fresh lemon juice. When serving, be sure to ladle a good portion of the sauce. There will be plenty of it.

Variations: You could add potatoes and carrots. You could saute mushrooms, add some of the Riesling sauce, add butter and then make a sauce. You could just toss the sauteed mushrooms into the mix. You could chop the celery bigger. You could serve it with horseradish mashed potatoes and gently sauteed carrots (I did). You could just serve it in a bowl with crusty bread. You could serve it with rice. You could serve it over noodles like stroganoff. You could add spring vegetables.

VERDICT: GUILTY OF BEING DELICIOUS! The best part is that there is a lot of winey sauce left over. I used it in mashed potatoes, tossed it into some soup I was making. Possibilities were endless. If you have a lot of it left over, just freeze it and re-use it when finishing a sauce. Goodness, you could probably toss it in spaghetti sauce.

Favorite New Cocktail!

CASE: B Cat and I love watching "Three Sheets," a drinking travel show. They visited Venice, and made this amazing looking cocktail. It's on hulu.com, the TV show, the South Korean episode is a hoot too!

3/4 cup white wine
little less than 1/4 cup Campari
splash soda
twist orange, olive

Pour white wine and campari over ice, then add soda water at end. Add garnish.

VERDICT: GUILTY OF BEING DELICIOUS!