Category: Recipes
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Beef Stew with Carrots and Polenta
My mother made traditional beef stew, in a pressure cooker (now called an “instant pot”), with onions, potatoes, and carrots, lots of gravy, and topped with puffy dumplings. I loved it, even though the vegetables were way overcooked and mushy. I’ve also learned to love the Italian combination of braised beef and polenta. Here, the…
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Pan-fried Salmon with Onions, Garlic, Capers, Rosemary and Lemon
This is a dish that I threw together while we were staying in Bonnieux during our long vacation in Provence and the Côte d’Azur in France. I bought the salmon and most of the other ingredients at the weekly market in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. The rosemary was growing in a pot on the terrace of our apartment…
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Grilled Pork and Peaches
Grilled pork and grilled peaches are just about perfect together. The technique of first brining the meat and then cooking it with the residual heat built up in a heavy cast iron or aluminum griddle preheated on a charcoal or gas grill, which I also described in an earlier recipe post, is a relatively fool-proof…
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Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Carrots with Garlic, Rosemary and Pancetta
Brussels sprouts and carrots are abundant at the farmers market these days, as is fresh garlic; and the rosemary in a pot on our patio flourishes in the southern California climate. Hence this dish. I’ve made a similar dish of brussels sprouts without the carrots and pancetta, but carrots are so good when roasted that…
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Grilled Eggplant
Adapted from “Melanzane in Graticola” found in Marcella Hazan’s Marcella’s Italian Kitchen. This is best with small-to-medium eggplants, up to about 3″ in diameter or so. Don’t be afraid to be generous with the oil and garlic. The eggplants will soak it up, which only adds to the flavor of the finished product.
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Garlic and Ginger Shrimp Stir-Fry with Snow Peas
This recipe is based on one I found in the NY Times Cooking section. It is quick and easy and very tasty. We typically serve it over brown rice, but the dish is also excellent with jasmine rice or just plain white rice. If you prefer less sauce, simply halve all of the ingredients except…
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Grilled Zucchini and Summer Squash with Basil and Parmesan
This recipe is my wife’s. It’s based on a recipe from Bon Appétit (July, 1999). It makes a tasty side dish and is easy to prepare. Luckily, we can get so-called “summer” squashes almost year-round at the farmers’ markets near us. Basil grows well in our pot garden almost year-round as well, although it likes…
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Multigrain Artisan-Style Bread
Making crusty artisan-style bread at home is really very easy and doesn’t require much of a time investment. A heavy dutch oven, some kitchen parchment, and a large mixing bowl are the only pieces of equipment you need, other than a hot oven. Flour, water, salt, and yeast, and some optional grains and seeds, are…
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Pasta Puttanesca
There are several different origin stories about Puttanesca sauce, perhaps all apocryphal. The one most often heard is that it originated with Neapolitan prostitutes at the turn of the 20th century, literally “whore’s pasta”. One version has it that the dish was cheap and quick to prepare between clients. Another is that the aroma was…
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Chicken Breasts with Capers and Tomatoes
This recipe is adapted from one found at NY Times Cooking, originally developed by Pierre Franey. It is simple, inexpensive, quick, and most importantly, tasty. I have made this with chicken breast cutlets instead of whole breast pieces, but I removed the chicken from pan while the sauce thickened up and then returned the chicken…
Thinking Man's Kitchen 