Basil Parsley Oil

2 Jul

I did this flavored oil to season a nice Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese Toasts… but I was surprised how versatile the oil has proven to dress and season many other recipes.

 

Basil Parsley Oil

 

BASIL PARSLEY OIL

A small handful of parsley – mostly leaves
A small handful of basil leaves
About 1/3 cup of olive oil
Sea Salt – 1 turn around the food processor bowl
About 4 turns of the pepper grinder

 

  1. In a food processor mix together all the ingredients and process until the herbs are chopped super fine.
  2. Let it rest room temperature for about 1 hour so the flavors mix well together before using.

 

If you’d like, you could strain it… but I like it chunky.

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Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese Toasts

1 Jul

I LOVE tomatoes!!!!  I just love them immensely… they might well be my favorite vegetable.  I am stuck between potatoes and tomatoes as my favorite, and I am just realizing that possibly neither of them is actually a vegetable.

Oh well, vegetable or not, I have been receiving way too many tomatoes in my weekly CSA box that I have been finding creative ways to have them.  Although growing up I used to just slice a tomato as a way to add “a salad” to my plate and, to this day, I still do it when I am too lazy to wash lettuces and cut up other salad components.

Something I recently started doing (or stopped doing would be a more accurate expression) is to not place tomatoes in the fridge.  With the temperatures being so hot here in PR, I always believed tomatoes would spoil way too quickly if they were left sitting on a counter.  Well, they eventually can spoil, but you can safely leave them there for a good week and they will be perfect.  The taste of a tomato is definitely better and more intense if it’s left at room temperature.  Apparently there is a component in the tomato that is shuts down its flavor permanently if the tomato is kept in the fridge.

This is a tomato salad made to celebrate the lusciousness of tomatoes… 

 Tomato Salad 2

TOMATO SALAD WTH GOAT CHEESE TOASTS

Tomatoes – organic and local preferably to ensure their freshness and flavor
1 whole-grain demi-baguette, sliced on a bias
Salt/Pepper to taste
Drizzle of olive oil
About 2 oz of goat cheese – left at room temperature for a few minutes
About 1 tbs of Basil/Parsley oil

 

  1. Slice tomatoes as you wish – in slices across its equator, pole to pole… however you prefer.
  2. Drizzle baguette slices with olive oil, some salt and pepper and toast in a toaster oven until they’re golden around the edges.  Slather them with goat cheese
  3. Place sliced/cut tomatoes on a plate.  Drizzle basil/parsley oil and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.  Place goat cheese toasts on the side…

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Steamed Veggies with Horseradish Vinaigrette

29 Jun

A few weeks ago I received a bunch of green beans in my CSA box…  but not the regular green beans, the haricot vert French-kind green beans…  thinner and crisper than the regular ones.

As you may have read here already, I am not a bean fan.  But green beans are a completely different thing.  I grew up eating French-style green beans from a can.  It was one of the choices of ready-to-eat veggies we were given – green beans, canned corn or sliced tomatoes…  and they had to be the thin french ones, because the fat, stubby regular ones were not the same… you could see the little beans inside and that would be a no-no for me.

But evolving into fresh green beans is something much more recent… as I was explaining to a friend the other day, canned and fresh greens beans are two completely different things.  And after you’ve tried the fresh kind, you’ll never go back to canned, ever.

To me the easiest way to prepare them is steaming them…  and I top them with some sort of olive oil-based dressing.  This time around was with prepared horseradish.  Check it out…

 

 Steamed Veggies w- Horseradish Vin

STEAMED VEGGIES WITH HORSERADISH VINAIGRETTE

About 4-5 baby red bliss potatoes, washed and cut in half
A small handful of haricots verts or french-style green beans, trimmed
The juice of 1 lemon
1 tbs of prepared horseradish
Salt and Pepper to taste
About 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil

 

  1. In a medium pot, I cook some potatoes in a little bit of salted water.  I boil/steam them over medium heat in the covered pot for about 15 minutes.
  2. Boiling potatoes
  3. When the potatoes are about to be done, I place the trimmed green beans on top of the potatoes, cover the pot again and let them steam  about 2-3 minutes.  After that,  I turn the stove off and leave them there for about 5 minutes more until the green color in the beans is super bright.  Super easy.   
  4. Steamed Green beans and Potatoes 1
  5. While the beans steam, prepare the dressing…
  6. In a measuring cup whisk together the lemon juice, horseradish, olive oil, salt and pepper.   Drizzle over veggie and enjoy.

     Horseradish Vinnaigrette 1               Horseradish Vinnaigrette 2

Watch out…  make sure the horseradish you use does not contain egg or egg yolks in it.  I bought mine at Whole Foods and as you can see by the labeling, it does not contain any egg.  Just be careful if you’re traveling with it, because airport security might consider it a liquid and might take it away.  I was LUCKY I got a nice security person and let it slide…

           Gold's Horseradish                 Gold's Horseradish - BACK

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Mango Sorbet with Kiwi Fruit

26 Jun

You have friends over and little time to make dessert? 

Embellish a store-bought frozen dessert with fresh fruit…   easy peasy.  And if the colors are as striking as these, nobody will even question your culinary skills.

 

 Mango Sorbet w-Kiwi

MANGO SORBET WITH KIWI FRUIT

1 pint of Häagen Dazs Mango Sorbet
2 kiwi fruit, peeled and diced

 

  1. Take some pretty glasses or cups
  2. Scoop 2 sorbet balls and garnish with kiwi pieces on top
  3. Wipe the sweat off your face after all this hard work… 🙂

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Broccoli and Cauliflower Stuffed Shells

24 Jun

  A few weeks back I was figuring out what to do with the broccoli I had gotten in my CSA box…  I like it steamed or as part of a salad… but the farmer had told me the leaves are really good and I just was not sure how to cook them.  In Puerto Rico, or maybe it’s just me, we are not too fond of cooked leafy greens.  It’s just not part of our regular culinary vernacular.  But lucky enough, I saw this recipe for stuffed cannelloni from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie at Home.  It was just the recipe I needed to use up a lot of broccoli in one single recipe.

The broccoli I get in my CSA box is small… sometimes I questioned if it was really broccolini or even broccoli rabe.  So that’s why I used a few bunches of my CSA broccoli, but the recipe calls for ½ a broccoli stalk.  I guess you could use it all if you wanted.  This CSA broccoli came with lots of leaves, so that’s why I really wanted to use up and not waste.

CSA - Brocoli

When I am trying out new recipes, I rarely like to cook them just for myself.  Some people call me brave because I am willing to test and try out things I have never cooked before on my friends.  So I invited my friends Annie Mariel and Laura to try out this recipe with me… these were the brave and lucky two who got to try this one first.  Since then, I have made this recipe a bunch if times… they loved it!!!  When my mom tried it she thought the filling had cheese in it…   it’s so creamy.

But don’t be intimidated by the ingredient’s list…  I looks like there are too many ingredients, but if you think of it in components in the dish, it’s neither that long nor very difficult.  You’ll see…

  Stuffed Shells - Broccoli 3

BROCCOLI AND CAULIFLOWER STUFFED SHELLS

½ of a large head of broccoli, chopped into medium sized pieces, including the stem and leaves
½ head of cauliflower, chopped into medium sized pieces too
2 tbs olive oil, divided for the filling and the tomato sauce
6-7 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
A pinch of Red pepper flakes – you can add more if you like the heat
About 12 -16 brown-rice pasta shells – I use the Tinkyáda brand
½ cup sour cream
½ cup Devon double cream – it’s a Jamie Oliver-inspired recipe, I had to use English cream…
¼ cup parmesan cheese
1/3 cup fried tomato sauce or pureed tomatoes
About 1 tbs vinegar – I’ve used white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
3 slices of fresh mozzarella cheese
Basil leaves – optional
 
  1. Bring a large pot filled with salted water to a boil. 
  2. While the water boils, chop the cauliflower and broccoli.  Make sure you peel the outer skin of the broccoli stalks and chop the leaves as small as possible.  Do not use the stems of the leaves, just the leaves.  The stems will never puree well… I tried. 
  3. P1070371
  4. Add the chopped broccoli and cauliflower to the salted boiling water and cook for about 10 -15 minutes.
  5. When the broccoli and cauliflower have been for about 5 minutes already in the pot of water, heat 1 tbs of olive oil in a medium sized pan with tall sides.  Add the garlic slices and the red pepper flakes and cook until the garlic is golden, but not browned or bitter.
  6. Very carefully pass the broccoli and the cauliflower to the pan where the garlic and pepper flakes are.  Drain the vegetables as much as you can before placing in the oil, because the oil WILL SPLATTER.  I usually have a splatter guard in hand to make sure the oil does not catch me.  Mix the veggies with the garlic and pepper. 
  7. brocoli y coliflor blanched
  8. Add some salt and pepper to season and cook covered for about 30 mins, until the vegetables turn into an unrecognizable mass where they no longer retain their vegetable shape.  The leaves will not disintegrate…
  9. While the veggies cook, let’s prepare the sauces…
  10. For the tomato sauce, mix together the tomato puree, salt, pepper, vinegar and a small drizzle of olive oil.  Set aside. 
  11. For the white sauce, mix together the double cream, sour cream, most of the parmesan cheese and season with some salt and pepper.  Set aside.
  12. Also, bring again the large pot of water (with new water please…) to a boil.  Add salt and add the pasta shells.  Cook for about 5-7 minutes until they have grown in size a bit, are flexible to the touch, but still not fully cooked.  Drain the pasta shells and rinse with cold filtered water to stop the cooking process and cool them enough to handle.  Set aside.
  13. Shells - Par Boiled
  14. After the veggies are cooked, use an immersion blender to turn the veggies into a puree.  Make sure all the leaves are pureed and remove any stringy parts that may be around…
  15. Now we assemble… in your baking dish pour the tomato sauce on the bottom.  Using a small spoon, fill each shell with the broccoli/cauliflower puree and place in the baking dish. 
  16. Stuffed Shells - Broccoli 2
  17. After all the shells are filled and placed on the baking dish, spoon the white sauce over the shells.  If you want, now is the time to add some basil leaves, put I have made it without and the dish doesn’t need it…  now sprinkle some additional parmesan cheese on top of the white sauce and finish with pieces of fresh mozzarella on top.
  18. Now we assemble25-30 minutes, or until the top crust is golden brown.  As always… when the time is up, just turn the oven off and leave it there for about 10-15 more so it finishes cooking.

  Stuffed Shells - Broccoli 1

I served this with a very simple tossed salad and sweet baked plantains.  We had mango sorbet with kiwi pieces for dessert…

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