As the Summer slowly approaches, pesto is on my mind. This weekend we made a few great ones. One of them needs to be developed a bit further, but one is perfect just how it is, and that’s the one I am going to show you today. This pesto can be made in a blender, or with a knife. Both ways are very different and delicious in their own right. I have both ways shown here.
Trashy \”sushi\” rolls made with mac and cheese and ground beef
Risotto made with a rich broth flavored from dried chiles and filled with beef and pork to emulate a bowl of chili
We wanted to make many different things for this party but a lot of the ideas fell through. One of the ideas was cheesesteaks but we didn’t want Mandi to be on the grill all night. We were watching Man v. Food on the travel channel (have you seen it? Think Diners Drive-ins and Dives minus awful catchphrases, frosted tips, and backwards sunglasses, and plus a fun eating challenge) and they were in Chicago (another plus to MvF, one city at a time.) On that episode Mandi and I saw a sandwich we had never seen before. It was called the Chicago style Italian beef sandwich. One of the things that attracted us to this sandwich (besides the fact that we were drooooling at our TV) was that it sits in a gravy and not only CAN be made a day in advance, but NEEDS to be made a day in advance! Like most regional food we make, we like to have someone from the area to vouch for authenticity, especially in a case like this where we have never been before! Our friend Mike was more than happy to be a taste tester.
When I was young, chicken parm was my favorite meal. I got it whenever I went out to eat. I liked it so much that my mom even made it for me on my birthdays. (which happens to be tomorrow…) As I got older and more into the food world, I started to shrug off chicken parm as cheesy Italian-American fare. Something these so-called Italian restaurants serve to the masses. Places that lay on thick accents, but the food doesn’t resemble anything you would find in Italy. I try as hard as I can not to be snobby about food. Food is something that everyone shares, and if you are a snob about it, you will find yourself eating foie gras and sea urchin alone in a corner somewhere crying into your chilled melon and prosciutto soup(mmmsalty tears). If you set too many limits on your diet and only eat things people deep in the foodie world consider appropriate or acceptable, you may end up missing out on the best meal of your life! Last week I ate chicken parm for the first time in probably 4 years. I am sorry chicken parm and I hope you find it in your tenders to accept me back.
Pasta cooked in coffee and then tossed in a creamy chile sauce.
A bright and herby chimichurri is a great topping for a juicy turkey and perfect for after a long day on the mountain.
An egg frittata with bacon, sausage, and lots of pasta
The perfect guide for making any jello shots you could imagine! Tons of ideas and inspiration to have the best jello shot party ever!
Tortellini soup has been a Christmas Eve tradition in my family for as long as I can remember. My Mom would buy 8 bags filled 100 tortellini each from a little old Italian woman who lived across town. When she called each year she would have to mention my Grandfather and I think there was even a secret password involved. The bags only cost 3 dollars, and the tortellini were out of this world. Every year it was the highlight of the season and we waited for it with anticipation. It was my Dad’s side of the family that came over every year. And since they are the Irish side of my family, they could only get their fix of this soup once a year and it became quite a big event.
One year we found out that the secret tortellini lady had moved back to Italy. What would we do?? For a few years my Mom bounced around from various specialty store to newer secret tortellini ladies. But it was never the same and our special meal suffered. Don’t get me wrong, it was still great, but not like it once was. On top of that these women were charging 15 dollars a bag and up! That got expensive when buying 8 bags. Finally one year when we had no other options (and I happened to be unemployed at the time and just beginning to love cooking) I offered to make the tortellini.
My Mom was unsure. Should we risk it not tasting good for all those people? Can we get the recipe from Grandma? Will you be able to do it all yourself? I was home for the weekend and she called my Grandmother asking about the recipe and if she thought it was doable, she replied probably not and that it was a lot of work. The NEXT MORNING, my Grandmother showed up with 2 pounds of tortellini filling, my Grandfather, 2 great aunts, and a ham(!) for lunch. We worked all day and it has been a fun tradition ever since. I was home for thanksgiving this past weekend and we all got together to make them for this year.
I love carbonara. It’s fast, simple and cheap, yet very filling, warm and comforting. I generally don’t like it when I get it at a restaurant which is surprising to me because it is so easy to make! Today we used bacon rather than pancetta for a few reasons. We have tried both in this dish, and I prefer bacon. Also at the store I went to, they didn’t have the really good pancetta, only the thin round kind which I am not a fan of. Thirdly, we watched Giada at Home the other day and saw Aunt Raffi saying that when she is in the US, she uses bacon instead of pancetta because in the finished dish it tastes more “like it did back in Italy.” Those are enough reasons for me, so here is my recipe for pasta in the style of the coal miner’s wife.
I’ve been a huge fan of the Beastie Boys my whole life, but never realized what big foodies they were until now! I had this idea last week and have spent a lot of time on it. I didn’t foresee how much effort it would be finding all of these references and tallying them. I have now made the tally about 5 times and I am pretty happy with the totals. Before we start, let me tell you the rules I went by.
1. Brass monkey is sometimes a dance, but mostly a mixed drink. I only counted it as the drink.
2. I didn’t count the generic “drinking”, but any mention of beer or liquor was counted.
3. Things like the word juice for money or the word melon for someone’s head don’t count.
4. Fat Morton Jelly Roll is a musician, not a food.
Anyways, here I present to you my quest to collect every Beastie food reference, catalogue them by rapper, and discern who the biggest foodie is, and who the biggest drinker is. If you just want the results, scroll way down to the bottom. But if you are a fan of the boys, scroll through the lyrics and I am sure you will be laughing like I was the whole time I was making this. Normal food references are in black, while booze references are in blue. My comments are in italics, and there are links sprinkled all throughout. Some sites that helped me a lot were here, and here