From Camarones a la diabla comes
Spicy Chickpeas in Ancho Chili Sauce
So, first of all, happy #MeatlessMonday! Hopefully you are doing your part for the environment and for yourself today and are having one day where you go without meat. If so, good for you! If not, it’s never too late to get started!
So, today’s recipe was a bit of an experiment I concocted after making Camarones a la diabla for the second time (both with and without the camarones.) I love the flavors, I love the heat, I kind of love the fact it leaves me with a bunch of dried chilies I need to cook with…
Actually, I do love to experiment and this particular recipe came about because I like to play and because, well, frankly, I needed to eat.
Never one to turn down a challenge, when The Olive Press, an all-world olive oil store in Sonoma and Napa put out a challenge to several food bloggers to do four courses with four of their olive oils, guess who signed up? This guy.
Guess who is going to win? This guy! (No offense, I come by my arrogance naturally.)
You smell that? I just opened a can of whup [bleep] and four bottles of olive oil including:
The Arbequina a light (they call it delicate) Spanish olive oil with an almost Spring-like flavor of fresh cut grass and wild flowers.
The Mission, a Northern California olive oil that tasted the most like the store-bought olive oils I am used to, though with deeper notes and more complexity.
The Italian Blend, a robust oil that delivered strong olive oil flavor.
The Blood Orange which was sweet and citrusy and is my new favorite olive oil, hands down.
So, given these four oils as the canvas on which to make my four course masterpiece , I had to come up with a theme. My first thought was Italian: caprese salad, pesto, olive oil gelato and caponata. I was feeling pretty good about things. For about two minutes.
That menu just felt safe. I knew I could pull it together and it would be good, but was it enought to stand out? Could I win the prize pack from the Olive Press with it? Let’s be honest, if the good folks from the Olive Press were sitting down at my table (or if Emeril ever perfects smell-o-vision), I’d do that menu in a heartbeat. But I knew for this competition, all I had was my words and a few pictures. So I had to rework my theme.
I asked Twitter. My tweeps were no help. At all. Most of the uses for olive oil they came up with can’t be repeated on a PG blog. Google, on the other hand, was a great help and within no time I had a new theme: world cuisine with olive oil. Four cuisines, four olive oils, four courses, four chances to delight the taste buds.
Better yet, the total cost of this menu was about $40 and it only took 2 hours to put together. Can you say party time?
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get to the menu:
First Course – Greek Appetizer Trio
This trio of hummus, baba ghanoush, and flavored olive oil gets things started using the robust Italian Blend olive oil. I choose it because it had the boldest flavor of all the oils (hence “robust”), which all three appetizers needed. The hummus and baba ghanoush would both have been flat and monotonous with a good olive oil flavor and, of course, flavored olive oil is just going to be disappointing without a strong olive oil base.
The baba ghanous recipe is from The Olive Oil Source, the flavored olive oil is just Italian Blend olive oil, parsley, oregano and garlic. The hummus is chickpeas, olive oil, garlic, lemon, salt, and tahini smoothed out in the food processor.
Second Course – Spanish Tuna/Olive Tapas
Spanish course, Spanish olive oil, right? Sadly, no. That would have made sense, but the delicate flavors of the Arbequina would have been lost beneath the saltiness of the tuna and kalamata olives. Instead, I used the Mission in this recipe from EricWeisstein as a base, but used package tuna (due to time considerations) and topped with sriracha for a nice kick of spice. Be careful not to use too much, though.
Third Course – Asian Hot Pot with Shrimp
Ah, the famous Sichuan hot pot… this is the dish that really got me excited. I got even more excited when I tried the Arbequina since I knew it would be perfect for this. See, the chilies in the dish all have very pungent flavors, but having a fruity olive oil in the mix changed the complexity of the hot pot’s flavor. Instead of just being heat, there were subtle floral undertones to the dish not present in a normal hot pot and that was a very good thing.
To recreate this dish, fill a fondue pot 1/2 full of Arbequina, then add 1/2 cup of Chinese chili oil and a few dried peppers. Stir and bring to heat. Serve with raw shrimp that are put into the hot pot to cook.
Fourth Course – Lemon and Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake with Gelato and Chocolate Sauce
Yes me, the ever non-baker had to get help both from the Blood Orange Olive oil and Epicurious. I then topped with Jasper Mirabile’s caremelized guanciale gelato with a dash of chocolate sauce. It was heavenly, though.
And that’s my meal. Seriously, about $40 bucks, a little over 2 hours. One heck of a party. Give it a try, it’s the perfect dinner.
Enjoy!
It’s kind of last minute, but I found out that Chef Michael Smith who, as luck would have it, is the head chef at Restaurant Michael Smith (funny how that happens) and the excellent Extra Virgin, is having a dinner with wine pairings featuring superstar Italian winemaker Antonio Sanguineti on Monday, March 1st.
The festitivities for the dinner begin at 5:30 at the Cellar Rat where you can meet Mister Sanguineti and discuss the ins and outs of making some of the best Italian wines on the planet. The dinner begins at 6:30 at Restaurant Michael Smith and features a 6-course menu with wine pairings.
Can you say drool?
The first course is marinated Cici Beans with (get this) grilled radicchio and cauliflower frito paired with Trevisiol Presecco. I mean, jeez. This course had me at Prosecco and fried cauliflower. I can just see myself trying to trade my radicchio for more cauliflower like in third grade (only I won’t be trading for more French fries.)
If that weren’t enough, the other five courses include
- Grilled king fish
- Pancetta wrapped stuffed quail* (yowsa)
- Wild boar with papardella
- Bistecca alla flortine
- To top off the night, vanilla panna cotta.
(*Yes, I realize quail are cute, but they are cute and delicious.)
That’s the kind of menu one should expect from a James Beard Outstanding Chef finalist.
Last I checked, space was still available, but with seating limited, I’d make a reservation soon. To do so, call 816.842.2202 and tell them BlogWellDone sent you. I promise that will make absolutely no difference!
Hey, like I said in my last post, Jasper’s Restaurant in Kansas City really is having a Slow Food Pork Demo and Dinner, which is proudly called from Snout to Tail (click on the link for the Google Calendar reminder.) I’m pretty excited about it. Scratch that, I really excited.
Why? Well, I kind of like pork. Especially local, organic pork.
But more than that, not only is the dinner/class a cooking demo put on by Chef Jasper (who, if you haven’t been to one of his classes, be ready to be both entertained and STUFFED full of good food), the food is really exciting. Chef Jasper, along with other members of Slow Food, have put together a menu which accentuates the local pork including some guanciale I spied hanging in his wine cellar that he made himself. The menu also includes Tuscan Bean Soup, Penne Amatriciana, Porchetta, and maybe some jalapeno pork?
(Need more convincing, check out the pasta con sugo all’ Amatriciana. That’s going to be on the menu.) Need even more more convincing? Somerset Ridge Winery will be pairing their locally produced wines with each course in the meal. Need even more more more convincing? See that lovely guanciale over there? That’s for dinner.
So if you want some great local pork, if you like good wine, if you want to learn how to cook like Kansas City’s iconic master chef, or if you just want to meet me, Blog Well Done, come to Jasper’s this Thursday. But hurry. Seats are limited. Get yours by calling 816.941.6600 right now.
#MeatlessMonday Vegan Pork Albondigas with Match Meat and Red Gold Tomato Sauce
Author: Chris Perrin
Because I can’t promote just one thing in a post, let’s do
#MeatlessMonday Vegan Pork Albondigas with Match Meat and Red Gold Tomato Sauce
Phew. That’s a mouthful. This post is like already like NASCAR car. It’s just covered in ads. Hrmm…let’s see how much worse I can make it.
Anyway, this is the promised second post in my Saturday Edition of #MeatlessMonday. I’ve been doing a little catch up on the #MeatlessMonday tip since I missed a few weeks. So that’s why this is a #MeatlessMonday post.
Secondly, this is a recipe for albondigas, which is Spanish for “meatballs.” But don’t be fooled. Sure, there are some albondigas recipes which are pretty much like your average Italian meatball recipe or exceptional one’s at Jasper’s. (By the way, he’s having a from snout to tail pork dinner Thursday.) Others, though, use Latin ingredients like corn or jalapenos to give them a unique flavor. I used this recipe as a basis for my albondigas from About.com because it stuffed them with rice.
Third, since I am trying to do this as a #MeatlessMonday, I figured I’d turn to Match Meat since they are my favorite source of meat replacers and I had a package of ground pork vegan Match Meat in my freezer.
Fourth, most of the recipes you find for albondigas are actually for albondigas soup, which is fine, and it’s how the About.com folks got away with using uncooked rice in the albondigas. I, on the other hand, didn’t want a soup. So I found this recipe from WhatsCooking.us for albondigas in ancho chile sauce. And since the recipe called for diced tomatoes, I was more than happy to use the Red Gold tomatoes that I got in the tin I mentioned yesterday on BlogWellDone.com.
So in the end, I took the albondigas recipe and the sauce recipe and combined them together to make dinner.
(Oh, did I mention I went to the Farmhouse for lunch and guest posted on The Bobby Pin? And congratulations to Chef Michael Smith for his James Beard nomination and to Chef Debbie Gold for being tapped for Top Chef Masters.)
First of all, Chef Jasper, this recipe was not an attempt to copy your Pasta alla Nanni, though I’d be lying if I said that
Le Seuer Pea Pasta with Red Gold Tomatoes
didn’t take one of its ingredients for your famous pasta dish. But more on that in a minute.
First thing’s first. Welcome to the first of two #MeatlessMonday Saturday edition posts. Yes, yes, it’s been well-documented that having #MeatlessMonday on a Tuesday, Wednesday, etc., etc. is just weird. But I’m making up for lost time. I missed a few weeks, but I’m back in saddle just in time for lent. Just remember, on Fridays when you’re not eating meat, you can eat vegetarian. You’ll love it. Promise.
Okay, back to the dish. As I said above, this recipe is in no way an attempt to copy world famous Chef Jasper Mirabile’s Pasta alla Nanni, though I will admit it was a huge inspiration. In fact, I hadn’t had Le Seuer peas in years until I went to Chef’s restaurant and he served up a pasta the Pasta alla Nanni to my wife and I. Now, they’re back to being a pantry staple in the BWD household.
So, to Chef Jasper I give a nod of thanks and I promise that since you won’t give out the recipe for Pasta alla Nanni to anyone (including BWD, Jr.), I won’t publish any guesses on how to make it. But I bet I can come close. 
With that being said, there’s another ingredient to our battle. The secret ingredient.
Sorry, I channeled Iron Chef there for a second.
In all seriousness, a little while ago, Red Gold tomatoes sent me the coolest freaking tin of product. It had three cans of Red Gold tomatoes (sauce, diced, and diced with green chilies), a recipe book, a refrigerator magnet, and a model Red Gold truck that my son loved so much he wrote me a thank you card for it. So cool.
So I’ve been holding those cans for something special when I realized that my Red Gold tomato sauce would be perfect for a recipe like this. Seriously, if you have been using generic tomato suace, I highly recommend you try a good quality sauce like Red Gold tomato sauce next time . There is definitely a dfference with good ingredients.
Match Meat Pizza
It’s another #MeatlessMonday!! But wait you say, it’s Thursday! That’s true, it is Thursday, but I’ve been pretty lax in my support of #MeatlessMonday the past few weeks and I wanted to get back in the swing of things. So all this week, we’re doing meatless recipes. (By the way, next week will be a celebration of all thing seafood in honor of lent and the sacrifices made around the world by Catholics everywhere.)
Anyhoo, this recipe is pretty simple. I included it for two reasons. First, it’s a simple. It’ s not quick due to the fact I’ve included a whole wheat crust recipe, but that can easily be replaced by something store bought.
Secondly, it’s vegan.
but with extra diabla and some vegan crab Match meat. All of which makes really good
Camarones a la Diabla Minus the Camarones
So, there’s a lot going on with this post today. In brief, what I wanted to do was keep the week of #MeatlessMonday recipes theme going on, so this recipe is absolutely 100% vegan. It doesn’t get much more #MeatlessMonday than that.
Secondly, in case you don’t know what camarones a la diabla are, they are one of my absolute favorite Mexican dishes. Translated literally it means shrimp of the the devil, or deviled shrimp, but they are a fabulously spicy shrimp dish I order a lot at Mexican places. The shrimp are stewed in a spicy tomato sauce and served with warm tortillas, rice, and avocado. So good.
Of course, there’s a problem, right? Camarones are meat. This is #MeatlessMonday (Wednesday edition.) That means no camarones. So that’s when I turned to my good friends at Match and their Uh-may-ZING vegan crab made from plant proteins. So good.
In the end, I came up with something that was not bad for a first attempt at a Mexican dish. It still needs some work, but I think I got pretty darn close.
Yeah, I know it’s Tuesday, but I want to keep #MeatlessMonday going on all week long, so how about
Vegetarian Quesadillas with Mushrooms
Okay, so a quick footnote. This entire week, I’m going to be blogging #MeatlessMonday recipes despite the fact that only one day can actually be Monday (and that, of course, was yesterday.) However, I missed a few #MeatlessMondays and I am atoning for it this week with lots of vegetarian and vegan recipes.
Also, I am thinking that this is timely for lent since a lot of you have to go without meat on Friday. I promise that meatless does not have to be borning. And who knows, maybe next week, we’ll talk fish.
Okay, anyway, let’s talk quesadillas with mushrooms. So, I got this idea tonight at dinner while perusing the vegetarian section (what can I say, I was looking for ideas?) and on the menu there were several versions of quesadillas with “marinated mushrooms.” Some came with zucchini and other vegetables, which all sounded good, but for some reason, the idea of a simple mushroom quesadilla just sounded good.
So, let’s roll with it.
So the question was asked at today’s #FNI what’s my favorite soup, which has to be
Creamy Potato Soup
Specifically, the creamy potato soup from Panera served with a nice piece of whole wheat French baguette. (Though, I answered Beef Barley soup, but that was just pandering.) Anyway, I got to thinking how a good creamy potato soup recipe would be just the thing for a great #MeatlessMonday post.
Except for one thing. Bacon.
I’m pretty sure one of the things that makes Panera’s creamy potato soup so good is none other than bacon. And yes, bacon does taste good, but this is #MeatlessMonday and so we’re going to take it out and see if we can’t make a great soup anyway.
