recipe rave: corn and tomato pie

So I did mention a life altering pie when talking about last week's dinner party, did I not?





Have you ever seen on Saturday Night Live when Will Ferrell does James Lipton’s Inside the Actor’s Studio? In one sketch Kate Hudson is Drew Barrymore (which, incidentally made me like Kate Hudson a lot more, because she was very funny) and there's a point where they are talking about the movie E.T. Will Ferrell/Lipton says in classic, overdramatic Liptonian run-on sentences: “If you have not seen this film go right now to a store where videos are sold and rented and rent it or buy it and WATCH IT.”





Well, if you have never had Corn and Tomato Pie go right now to a place where tomatoes and corn are sold or rented and buy some or rent some and tuck them into a biscuit crust and pile them with shredded cheddar cheese and bake them, and EAT THEM. I am not going to dial down the drama here.





This pie could best be described as "stupid", "incredible" and my personal favorite, "straight ridiculous." The recipe I used was in last month's Gourmet. And the directions can be found online here.

Even though I think it is tedious and annoying to peel and seed tomatoes, you're going to want to take those extra steps in this case. I read another food bloggers account of making this pie and the only complaint voiced was that it was very soupy. And my friend Stevie made this pie as well and she said that it was, in fact, soupy.





So I heeded the suggestion to seed the tomatoes, even though to me that always feels like a total mess and a whole lot of work and makes the tomatoes look all ugly and stuff but in this case, it's merited.




My pie was not soupy. It was creamy and crusty and savory and delicious. I am counting the minutes until it's acceptable for me to make this again. You should make it. Quick before all the corn and tomatoes are gone!

just about the best

There is a photo album you can buy from somewhere that says on the cover “My friends are prettier than your friends.” I think that’s kind of a bratty thing to say, but sometimes when I see cute photos of MY friends, I can’t help but think that. They really are pretty. But it’s not their cute haircuts or stylish outfits that I love the best (although I truly appreciate both very much) it’s their guts, their insides, their souls, if want to get new agey about it (and I would rather you didn’t). I just love ‘em and whenever I get the chance to see my favorite out-of-town friends in person I want to squeeze their cute guts right out of them. I also, like with everyone I love, want to stuff their guts full of delicious foods. And my guts too, naturally.





So this past weekend found two of my favorites visiting and they brought with them two very awesome reasons to celebrate. Val, brave soul that she is, offered to be the first of our clan to enter the age of 31. Go Val! Happy Birthday! And Shawn, Nina’s main squeeze, gave us an equally squeal-worthy reason to clink glasses when last weekend he up and decided to make an honest woman of our Neens. Lucky boy.





We had a celebratory dinner on Friday night (don’t worry I’ll cover the menu and the RIDICULOUS pie eventually) but when my ride turned into a pumpkin around midnight I found myself eager to lengthen the visit. So I offered to host breakfast in the morning.


I think breakfast is just about the best meal you can make for people. There’s something really fun about taking the time to prepare a proper meal in the morning when we all too often just jam a bagel down our throats. Having company before noon is pretty nice. For one, it’s an excuse for me to make my bed for once in my life and it’s kind of nice to see the table set first thing in the morning.





I really never gave breakfast enough credit until my 20s. In fact, I used to be one of those ninnies that thought “oh, but if I eat breakfast I get so hungry and then I end up eating more throughout the day.” Um, not if you eat a proper breakfast, dummy. Plus, when you deny yourself breakfast, you deny eggs all of the incredible possibilities that they have to offer. Behold the frittata. My mom, sister and I love us a frittata. If we had our own reality show you could play a drinking game in accordance with how often one, if not all three, of us brought up frittatas, made frittatas or just voiced our general approval of frittatas. When telling both of them about my Saturday breakfast menu they both sort of clucked approval and nodded (well I could hear my sister nodding from California) “Frittata. Way to go” and “Yup. Can’t go wrong with a frittata.” It’s kind of obnoxious. In fact, as a write this I’m beginning to loathe the word “frittata” (drink).





But in all seriousness. You really can’t beat this. I never made a f------a for this many people. All I did was up it to twelve eggs instead of six. It took a bit longer to cook but it puffed up beautifully and cut effortlessly, like a giant egg pie, if you will. Trust me on this: frittatas are your friend. We also had homefries, bacon, English muffins and a pitcher of mimosas. But truly the frittata was the star of the show.





HEIRLOOM TOMATO and FRESH HERB FRITTATA
Serves 8 (you can easily scale this back to six eggs, and it serves 4)


12 eggs
1 small white onion, diced
1 large heirloom tomato, thinly sliced
1 small clove garlic, minced
Olive oil
Handful of chopped fresh herbs (I used parsley, garlic chives and basil)
Cheese of your pleasing (I used feta, shredded cheddar and a sprinkle of parmesan)

Heat oven to 350. Spray an oven safe skillet with olive oil, drizzle some additional oil in the pan (about 1-2 tbsp.) warm over medium-high heat. Saute onion until translucent, just a few minutes, add minced garlic, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Crack eggs into large bowl and whip aggressively with a wire whisk. The fluffier you get your raw eggs before you transfer them into the pan, the lighter and fluffier your cooked eggs will be. Pour eggs into sauce pan. Lower heat. Add sliced tomatoes and some more salt and pepper. Add cheeses. Sprinkle the top with the herbs. Remove from burner and place into oven. Bake about 35 minutes (maybe longer). I originally set my timer for 15 and it wasn’t even close. I added another 15 and then periodically checked on my pan. If you grab the handle and give it a wiggle, it should not jiggle in the middle. I kept checking on mine and the minute the center appeared firm, I took it out and cut it into wedges. The result was moist, not dry, but also cooked through, so none of my dear guests ran the risk of salmonella. And I couldn't do that to them. They're too good looking after all.








SPICY, SAVORY HOMEFRIES
Serves 8

3 large Yukon gold potatoes, chopped into 1 inch cubes
1 small white onion, diced
vegetable Oil
seasoned salt, chili powder and Old Bay Seasoning

Cover potatoes with cold water and set to boil on the stovetop. Test a larger chunk at about 10-15 minutes. Once the potatoes are fork tender, remove from heat and drain. Heat a good drizzle of vegetable oil in a nonstick pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté for a few minutes, until translucent. Add potatoes to the pan. I did drizzle in a bit more oil at this point, as the taters tend to soak it up.


Homefries are probably the first thing I ever cooked myself when I was little. The key to delicious, red tinged, smoky homefries is paprika. Lot’s of it. When I realized I was out, I improvised. I read the ingredients on my Old Bay seasoning and paprika was one of them. Sold. I used generous sprinkles of that, along with a smaller pinch of chili powder and about a ½-1 teaspoon of Lawry’s seasoned salt. I have never in my life purchased seasoned salt before. Frankly it scared me a little bit, but it was an ingredient in my mac and cheese last weekend. Funny enough, it came in handy once again as a really nice way to salt up these homefries.





While I was cooking this particular breakfast, I turned the heat on these down to medium-low and just gave them a turn every once in a while. They are low maintenance and it’s kind of nice to just let them cook and let the flavors merge together while you prepare the rest of breakfast. Plus I really like when there are little burned bits of potato and onion in my homefries, but that’s personal preference.

triumphs and failures...a tale of two porkies

Holy cow. Do you EVEN KNOW what I just did? Something with enabling JavaScript and involving cookies. I got on the interweb this morning and tried to log in to post a blog. I got an error screen referring to both my cookies and my JavaScript. I wanted to slap it right in its fresh mouth, but instead I took a deep breath, did my best to focus my brain on the instructions I was shown to rectify the situation and you know what? IT WORKED! I know this is probably common knowledge for most people and the most basic thing ever, but for a technotard like myself, accomplishing this on the first try makes me feel like a Mad Genius! I didn’t even swear once! Anyways, it’s a good thing that worked itself out because I had one of those commutes to work this morning where you pretty much get convinced by what you see that the people of the world, specifically the people who drive Route 3 South from 7:45-8:45 (I’m talking to you Ford Taurus) are made of sheer liquid evil and I really get so mad at society and myself when I let a couple bad drivers make my blood pressure raise before my morning coffee. ANYWAYS, enough of that. I have been a neglectful blogger in recent days. Honestly, I swear, I had a full blog post with a recipe and everything set to go at the end of last week, but I just totally forgot to post it. Then when I read it again I deemed it unworthy. Honestly, it used Bisquik and I got embarrassed.

While we’re speaking of my flaws as a blogga, let me just tell you what I did this past weekend? Saturday was my mans’ 31^st birthday and I thought it would be fun to throw him a little birthday dinner. So I lovingly sent out an email invitation to parents and buddies alike. I plotted, schemed and recipe planned. I decided on a delicious, inexpensive and somewhat low maintenance meal so that I could maximize face time with guests. I wanted to wow on a budget. I washed the floors, set the table and bequeathed upon my Squeeze, a fresh birthday tee shirt.

I brought my mom’s china up from the basement and washed it, stacked it artfully on the table and set up a buffet.

I walked down to Michelle’s and snipped fresh herbs from her window boxes, I used my mortar and pestle for the first time in my everloving life. I marinated pork tenderloins and made croutons and Caesar dressing from scratch. I prepped, prepared, cleaned and chopped. I garnished the freaking hummus for god’s sake. And I smugly thought to myself, I could so totally write for Real Simple. I mean what is that magazine except common sense tips coupled with good art direction, really? I could do that, I thought.

And then, I took absolutely ZERO photographs. Of the food, of the people, of the cake, of anything. I completely failed to document the process all together. I got one shot of the macaroni and cheese as I made the sauce. That’s it. I can go out and take 75 pointless photographs over the course of a weekend, but I actually do something I live to do, like throw a dinner party, with all intentions of blogging about it and then completely space. Apparently five two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc were more captivating than my little Canon. So sorry about that.

The food came out great. You’ll have to take me at my word on this one, because well, that’s alls I’ve got. My mom brought crab cakes and clams casino, which were fantastic. I found two incredible recipes on Pioneer Woman’s website. One for a decadently garlicky Caesar salad and the other for the Most Ridiculous Mac and Cheese You’ve Ever Had. The only cooking photo I took that night:

You can find both these recipes, here and here. I made a big corn bread in my cast iron skillet, which I have been snacking on ever since and I made herb rubbed pork tenderloin with shallot jam along side. It was delicious, and fortunately was great for sandwiches, because even after packing up generous to-go containers for Paul’s buddies, I was still swimming in leftovers, including a carrot cake from White’s Bakery which could have been the death of me, if I had not brought the remaining half to my aunt’s house for Labor Day. All in all it was a great success but next time, I’ll remember to pay more attention to my camera and less attention to my wine. It’s better for everybody.

HERB RUBBED PORK TENDERLOIN with SHALLOT JAM

(shallot jam was found on thekitchn.com, pork tenderloin, I made up on my own. I also tripled this recipe (okay, quadrupled) to serve my crowd)

For the jam:

1 tablespoon olive oil

5 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced

½ cup chicken broth

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

2 heaping tablespoons apricot preserves

salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium high heat; add shallots, season with salt and pepper and brown well, stirring often for about five minutes. Turn heat up to high and pour in chicken broth, simmer on high while broth reduces, using wooden spoon to scrape browned bits of shallot off the bottom of the skillet (again, about five minutes). Turn the heat down to med-low and pour in balsamic. Simmer for another five minutes and stir in apricot jam or preserves. My apricot preserves were low sugar, so I added a few generous pinches of cane sugar. The mixture will thicken a bit but remain very stirrable. I made this the day ahead and refrigerated it until I was ready to cook my pork. Then I heated it up and served it on the side. It was tasty. A little too tangy, so next time I might dial down the vinegar and up the pinch of sugar to a teaspoon. Or let the vinegar cook off more. This jam keeps well in the fridge. I have been putting it on leftover pork sandwiches all week.

For the pork:

1 pork tenderloin

Olive oil

Chopped fresh sage

Chopped fresh rosemary

Salt and pepper

I snipped my fresh sage and rosemary into a wooden mortar and pestle. I added a generous amount of sea salt and crushed black pepper and a light drizzle of oil. I then crushed it into a sort of chunky herby paste.

Remove pork tenderloin from packaging and pat dry. Generously salt and pepper both sides and then rub with the herb mixture. Place in a freezer bag and drizzle with enough oil to coat. Let marinate for anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Heat oven safe skillet over med-high heat and coat pan with olive oil. Sear the tenderloin on all sides until brown. Place skillet directly in oven. Cook until thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat reads 160 degrees. Remove from oven, let rest a few minutes. Slice and serve.

black bean soup

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of things since college. About 90 pounds of pizza weight, my blonde hair, a lot of less-than-adult behavior. I finally tossed a certain green striped rugby shirt that stuck around for about a decade too long. I’ve gotten four different, smaller and better cell phones and I’ve passed my penchant for malt liquor drinking back down to the younger generations, where it belongs. One thing that has stuck around however is this total cheater of a recipe I adapted from an old roommate. I must confess that this recipe is sort of shameful in a very Sandra-Lee-Semi-Homemade kind of way. I like to scoff at her sometimes because it seems like a lot of her recipes include her defrosting something, tossing some chopped onions on top, fixing a cocktail and calling it dinner. However, this particular semi-recipe is win-win-win. “And with win-win-win we all win, even me.”

By win-win-win I mean this soup is cheap-fast-tasty, my personal favorite trifecta of weeknight meal criteria. The cheating with canned goods parts helps out a lot in all of these categories and for that, I can’t fault this soup for being very Semi Homemade.

This is a chunky, spicy black bean soup so thick you could ladle it into a tortilla and make a lovely, messy burrito. It’s so thick in fact, that Rachel Ray might call it a “stoup” (an adorable combination of soup and stew) but I think that word is stoup-id *Ba dump ba ching! I’ll be here all week!*. The secret weapon to this soup is one word two syllables: Goya. There simply is no substitution.

I have tried to make this with organic soups and black beans and it’s just not the same. So drink plenty of water, because I’m sure the sodium content is off the charts, but I promise you, if you’re in a location where it’s socially acceptable, you will lick the bowl.

BLACK BEAN SOUP

(serves five generously, with leftovers)

2 cans Goya Black Bean Soup

2 cans Goya Black Beans

1 red bell pepped, chopped into a large dice

1 yellow pepper, chopped into a large dice

1 medium sized white or yellow onion, chopped into a large dice

1 small clove garlic, minced

1 generous tablespoon cumin

1 pinch chili powder

Hot sauce

1 teaspoon flour (optional)

Olive oil

Accompaniments:

Sour cream

Shredded jack, cheddar or Mexican blend cheese

Flour or corn tortillas, warmed

Mas hot sauce

Heat a good drizzle of olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add onions and garlic to pan to sweat. Add both peppers (also, green works just fine, I just prefer the taste and looks of red and yellow). Lower the heat slightly, add salt, pepper, a generous amount of cumin and a pinch of hot chili powder. Stir to combine. Sauté for a few more minutes. Stir in all four cans of both the soup and black beans. Combine a teaspoon of flour with some warm water in a small bowl. Stir to dissolve the flour completely and add this slurry to the soup, along with a generous dose of hot sauce. At this point, I like to crank the heat up, almost to high, to combine all the flavors, stirring frequently for about five minutes or until I’m convinced any flour-y taste will be dead and gone. Adjust seasonings to your taste, I use a truckload of salt, but that may be personal preference. I also almost always add additional cumin and hot sauce as well. Lower heat to a simmer a let cook for a bit longer. It will be ready to eat, but somehow I’m convinced an extra 10-15 minutes on the burner makes it that much better.

Ladle soup into a bowl, add a layer of shredded cheese, another ladle of soup, a bit more cheese, a dollop of sour cream and splash of hot sauce. Serve with warm tortillas, or tortilla chips. This soup is super filling, salty, spicy and delicious. Great the day it’s made but even better the next.

wednesday night dinner: a photo essay

Chilled avocado soup, chopped Greek salad, pan seared cod.

As a rule, I don’t like cold soups. Gazpacho is the only one I have extensive experience with and eating that always makes me feel like I’m eating a bowl of salsa. And frankly, if I’m going to eat a bowl of salsa, I’ll take the salty tortilla chips, glass of sangria and platter of mole poblano that should rightly accompany it. But still a creamy avocado soup called out to me yesterday. It was beautiful to make and super simple.

Two ripe avocados and one half a large English cuke, diced



Thrown into the bowl of my trusty cuis’ (pronounced kweeze):



Add half a container full fat Greek yogurt,



The juice of half a lemon,



And puree. My first taste test led me to add a lot more salt and pepper, a teensy splash of half and half, a drizzle of olive oil and a dash of Cholula and puree some more…



The end result was beautiful to look at…



I mean I couldn’t stop taking pictures of it, but I ate about six bites and was all set. It was just a little bitter, I guess. My squeeze said it tasted like an under ripe banana, but he cleaned his bowl anyways. Nice work, buddy.

Fortunately some other exciting things happened in my dinner last night. Like a chopped Greek (sans lettuce) the making of which was easy and simple and no stove was required. Tomatoes and cucumbers:



Finely diced red onion…



Coarsely chopped Greek green olives (pitted and marinated and kind of expensive), crumbled feta cheese, salt, pepper and a small drizzle of olive oil. Peep my action shot!



I did a victory dance after I captured that one and then chuckled out loud when right at that moment Paul yelled from the living room “you takin’ pictures of this shit or what?” Am I taking pictures? Am I ever. That slick drizzle of olive oil in action just made my night (dork). I tossed my chopped greek together and placed it and my creamy green soup in the fridge to chill for a bit. Watched Gordon Ramsey call a couple a restaurant owners stupid cows and then made some pan seared cod. If you’ve got a nice piece of fish (or scallops) all they need are two things to make them delicious:



Old Bay before the cooking, lemons immediately after. Oh! And of course plenty of Salt n Pepa.



I generously salt, peppered and Old Bayed each side of this lovely cod fillet.



Then seared it in olive oil at medium high heat. It tended to fall apart and stick a bit, but once I plated it up and squeezed some lemon, it didn’t look quite so messy. And it was delicious!

goat cheese is the new black

Hi. My name is Jess and I’m addicted to goat cheese. I seriously have problems. If you asked me to list my favorite foods pizza would come pretty much first, followed in short order by fried chicken, avocados, a variety of salted meats and cheeses and I would not forget the inclusion of the delectable Cups made by our friend, Reese. BUT, if you were to ask me to list my favorite ingredients I guess I would have to come clean on the fact that there is nary a week when I don’t make a dish that involves goat cheese. On Thursday night I bragged to my boyfriend about the gnocchi I made for Erica and me.



“What was in it?”

“Oh, summer squash, artichokes, roasted tomatoes, lemon zest, crushed red pepper...and goat cheese.” He smirks.

“Lemon and goat cheese. Jess Pithie looooves lemon and goat cheese.”

Good god, I’m so boring. I mean I practically already made this exact same dinner and listed the recipe here in May, not mention the fact that I slapped it on some dough and called it a pizza mere weeks ago. So this here recipe can only be counted as a variation, at best. But whateves. I’m telling you right now make this pasta and you’ll be happy. It takes less than thirty minutes. Did you hear that? That was me karate chopping Rachel’s garbage bowl right off her kitchen counter. Hiiii-YA! So without further ado, another boring goat cheese recipe from my steamy apartment kitchen:



FIVE SECOND GNOCCHI*
*mild exaggeration for dramatic effect.

1 package gnocchi
1 garlic clove, minced
Juice of half a lemon
½ teaspoon lemon zest
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 jar marinated artichokes, drained
½ package baby spinach
¾ to 1 cup (ish) roasted cherry tomatoes
1 summer squash, sliced into thin rounds
salt, pepper, olive oil
fresh chopped parsley

Someday I will be enough of a food nerd to make my very own gnocchi, but until that day comes, Trader Joes has a nice vacuum packed gnocchi that cooks up in no time. Set a pot of water to boil. While the water comes to a boil, slice summer squash, drain oil off of artichokes. I had already roasted the cherry tomatoes, so those were all set.

Cook gnocchi according to package instructions. I started the gnocchi about half way through cooking the veggies, because those suckers take LITrally only about three minutes to cook.



Heat a healthy drizzle of olive oil over medium/ med.-high heat. When oil is ready, add garlic and summer squash. Sauté squash and garlic for a few moments, until both are golden and tender, taking care not to burn the garlic. Add lemon zest, crushed pepper and a healthy crank of salt and pepper to the pan. Add artichokes, breaking up large chunks with a wooden spoon. Add spinach and juice the lemon into the pan.



Crank the heat for a few moments to cook down the lemon juice. Stir in the roasted cherry tomatoes. Drain gnocchi when ready and add to the pan. Stir together. Crumble goat cheese, more salt, pepper and parsley on top. Serve immediately and then make your roommate do the dishes.

Alright, so since I am essentially only giving you a variation on an already bestowed recipe. I figured I would provide another easy one I ate last week. I paired this simple salad with some store bought fried chicken from a gourmet grocer you may know as Stop n Shop. It was late, I had just done a 90 minute hot yoga class (in August, mind you) and I figured I had earned the right to be disgusting. Would it be revealing too much to tell you that I bought a four piece box and ate the drumstick on the way home? I almost threw the bone out the window while driving down Wollaston Beach but realized in the nick of time that doing something like that might result in the most embarrassing traffic ticket issuance/pedestrian injury known by mankind. Like in my mind I walked through the whole process of me getting sued for flinging a chicken bone out of my moving car and hitting some poor schlub in the eye with it.

So, when I got home I boiled some native corn and then scraped the kernels onto some thick slices of tomato. Salt, pepper, some chopped garlic chives and basil, a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice was all I needed to make side dish so good I practically ignored the chicken. And that’s saying a lot.

CORN AND TOMATO SALAD

1 cob corn, boiled, cooled, knifed off the cob
1 ugly ripe tomato, sliced into rounds
¼ red onion, thinly sliced
Fresh chopped basil and garlic chives
Salt, pepper, olive oil, juice of ¼ a lemon



This was a generously portioned side for one. It would be plenty for two people, or you could double the whole thing to serve four.

Tomatoes and corn in August are so good they really don’t need much attention or fuss. Honestly, the dressing didn’t even really need lemon juice. It’s that good. Please forgive the horrendous photo. Once it gets dark in my kitchen I am really at a loss for good lighting. The picture above is the result of my holding my plate up to the light with one hand while blindly snapping a photo with the other hand. Best I could do.

recipes a comin. until then a hip photo i took