Tag Archives: Olive oil

May21

A Weeknight Like Giada’s

Posted on by
Standard

Mediterranean Halibut Sandwich

Like most people, my creativity and enthusiasm for cooking seems to droop on busy weeknights.  I was recently flipping through the latest issue of Health magazine and they were featuring several recipes from Giada de Laurentiis‘ new cookbook, Weeknights with Giada.  I have to admit, they all looked pretty do-able, and the Mediterranean Halibut Sandwich recipe was calling my name.  I am all too familiar with making basic sandwiches for a quick dinner, but this halibut recipe is restaurant-calibre, in my humble opinion.  The fresh herbs and lemon zest mixed with the halibut really make the dish special.

I didn’t deviate much from the original recipe, other than to use fresh sliced tomatoes in the sandwich instead of adding sun-dried tomatoes into the halibut-mayo mixture — just to keep from throwing the kids off too much.  I also left out the capers.  The sandwiches were a big hit, and I will definitely be making them again.  I may also try using the halibut-mayo mixture in a pasta salad.

Mediterranean Halibut Sandwiches (adapted from “Weeknights with Giada”, as featured in Health magazine):

Cooking spray

2 (6-oz) halibut fillets, skinned (I used 14 oz in total)

Salt and fresh ground black pepper

2 tbsp plus 1 tsp olive oil, divided

1 (14-oz) loaf ciabatta bread, ends trimmed, split horizontally

1 garlic clove, halved

1/4 cup reduced-fat mayo (I used olive-oil mayo)

1/4 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

2 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 tbsp capers, drained and mashed

Grated zest of 1 large lemon

2 packed cups (2 ounces) arugula (I used a mix of baby greens)

Preheat oven to 450 F.  Spray a small baking dish with cooking spray; add halibut and season with salt and pepper; rub with 1 tsp oil.  Bake 10-15 minutes, until cooked through and the flesh flakes easily with a fork.  Cool.

Remove some bread from the top half of loaf (and try not to eat it all).  Brush  cut sides with 2 tbsp oil.  Bake on a baking sheet 6-8 minutes, until golden.  Rub toasted surfaces with garlic.

In a medium bowl, combine mayo, sun-dried tomatoes, basil, parsley, capers, and lemon zest.  Add fish, flaking and mixing with a fork.  (I added extra salt and pepper at this point).  Spoon onto bottom half of bread and top with arugula (I tossed my greens in a bit of olive oil).  Add top of bread and cut into 4 sandwiches.

Related articles
Apr17

Spicy Shrimp & Feta Pizza

Posted on by
Standard

Spicy Shrimp & Feta Pizza

I’ve been playing with the new pizza stone I got for my birthday — pizza on the grill is amazing and makes for such an easy dinner.  My daughter Samantha actually made the request for a shrimp pizza (yes, I was thrilled), so we decided on shrimp, feta, and grilled yellow bell peppers (for my half).  I’ve previously written about all the delicious ingredients I’ve picked up at Oil & Vinegar at Watters Creek, and this was the perfect opportunity to put my two latest purchases to use:  Peperoncini Oil, and the “Hot Shot” spice grinder.  The Peperoncini Oil is light and flavorful with just a bit of spice.  The Hot Shot spice grinder contains all kinds of wonderful things:  chili pepper flakes, sea salt, mustard seed, coriander, onion, garlic, and paprika, to name a few.

We brushed the pizza crust with the oil, then topped with a bit of tomato sauce.  Next we added cooked shrimp, grilled bell peppers, a little shredded cheese (a 4-cheese blend), and lots of feta cheese.  Finished it off with a generous amount of the Hot Shot spices (only on my half!).  Delicious.

Peperoncini Oil & Hot Shot

Related articles
Feb24

Just For Me: Taleggio Truffle Flatbread

Posted on by
Standard

I recently found myself cooking for one — this hasn’t happened in at least seven years (the age of my oldest child).  I figured I should take advantage and make something that would drive my kids to tears if I ever served it to them.  Let’s see…lots of vegetables, extra strong cheese, and more vegetables on top:  perfect.  The lovely White Truffle Oil I picked up at Oil & Vinegar has been burning a hole in my pantry waiting to be used, so I decided to create a new version of the mushroom and taleggio cheese flatbread that my Mom has made for us in the past.

 

Ingredients:

2 whole-grain Naan flatbreads (or other flatbreads/pizza crust of your choice)

1-2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 cups mixed sliced mushrooms (I used cremini, oyster, and shiitake)

1 10-oz container cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes

Salt & pepper, to taste

4-oz piece of taleggio cheese, rind removed

2 cups fresh baby arugula

2 tsp white truffle oil

Coarse sea salt (I like Maldon)

Preheat over to 400F.  Toss mushrooms, tomatoes, and EVOO on a cookie sheet; sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast in the oven until the tomatoes start to burst, about 12 minutes, turning half way through.  Place flatbreads on a second cookie sheet and top with cooked mushroom/tomato mixture.  Dot taleggio cheese over the vegetables and return to the oven until the cheese melts, about 5 minutes.

Toss arugula with truffle oil and place on top of cooked flatbreads.  Sprinkle sea salt on top (this is the best part).  Serves 2-3.

Taleggio Truffle Flatbread

Related articles
Feb18

Fish Piccata and Lemony Pasta

Posted on by
Standard

Flounder Piccata with Angel Hair Pasta

This would be a perfect dish to serve to a family that is trying to eat more fish — it is extremely mild with lemon and butter (I skipped the capers), and you can make it with whatever thin white flaky fish looks good at the store.  I used wild flounder, but tilapia, snapper, sole, and catfish would also be good.  I wouldn’t recommend a thick fish like halibut or cod for this recipe.  I had never actually cooked fish using this process of dredging in flour and then lightly pan frying in olive oil before, and it turned out so well.  The sauce was initially very strong with lemon, because I accidentally put the butter into the green beans instead of the fish sauce.  Those were some really delicious green beans (since I had already tossed them in olive oil and lemon juice!).

Both the Fish Piccata and the Angel Hair Pasta recipes are from Melissa d’Arabian.  You really want to serve them together as all the flavors combine so well (lemon, butter, olive oil, parmesan).  And if you keep some fish fillets in the freezer, this is a super easy dinner to throw together with things you already have on hand.  With the ingredient lists so short, these aren’t as much recipes as they are methods of cooking, but I’m thrilled to now know how to cook fish this way and the kids loved it.

Related articles
Feb3

Pint-Sized Caprese

Posted on by
Standard

Caprese Pops

I love shopping at Central Market.  It’s a good idea to go on an empty stomach, as they are always sampling a ton of delicious food.  I was picking up some fresh basil when I saw a woman putting together skewers of tomato, basil, and mozzarella.  After enjoying my little treat, I decided we definitely had to have Caprese Pops as our salad with dinner.

This dish (I’m not sure you can even call it a recipe) was easy enough to assign to my seven and four-year old daughters — and they loved making them.  I set out grape tomatoes, basil leaves, cubes of mozzarella, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a grinder of sea salt (I like Maldon), and pepper.  They did the rest.  It seemed the tomatoes were magically removed from their skewers after reaching the dinner table, but I was happy that they at least tried them.

Related articles
Jan29

A Delicious Pantry Upgrade

Posted on by
Standard

A Few Selections from Oil & Vinegar

I was recently out with my daughter Samantha at Watters Creek, our favorite outdoor shopping center.  I had heard about a new store that had dozens of oils and vinegars “on tap”, which sounded so intriguing.  Samantha was having a good time outside and resisted at first, but once I got her into the store, I couldn’t get her out.  We had so much fun sampling Oil & Vinegar‘s fares with the tiniest bits of bread on toothpicks; I could see I had a little seven-year old foodie in the making.

The concept is a lot of fun — you can pick from different sizes and shapes of glass bottles, which can be brought back to the store to be refilled (nice for the environment too).  You can try everything before you buy it.  In the end (literally, an hour later), Samantha chose the Rosemary Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which is great on its own, and also delicious mixed with the Parmesan Dipper mix she just had to have.  We also bought the Lime Riesling Grapeseed Oil (great for cooking fish at high temperatures), the Fig Balsam Creme Vinegar (so far we’ve just mixed it with Rosemary EVOO for dipping, but it will be perfect in salads and for vegetable dishes), and finally, the White Truffle Oil, which, as my friend Tara says, makes pretty much everything taste 1000 times better.

I want to go back to try a few more things, but I’ve told myself we have to finish at least one of these existing bottles first.  A fine excuse to keep on cooking.

Jan25

A New Kind of Spaghetti Night

Posted on by
Standard

Creamy Avocado Spaghetti

The first thing I ever learned to cook was spaghetti with meat sauce — in home ec class, no less.  I can remember asking my Mom if I could use my newfound skills to cook dinner for her and my Dad, and I put a little shake of everything I could find in the spice cabinet into that sauce.  The bad news:  my Mom has always had a very well-stocked spice cabinet.  She looked up from her plate and asked, “is this dill I taste?”.  That was my first lesson on how not to make spaghetti sauce.  But as a teenager there were a lot of spaghetti nights with friends, and in those settings we tended to revert back to just throwing in whatever we could find, and it was always a ton of fun.

My girls love spaghetti too, but they are not big on tomato sauce.  I need to keep working on that one.  In the meantime, I thought I would try Angela Liddon’s quick creamy avocado pasta with basil, lemon, garlic, and olive oil.  I stayed true to the recipe at the beginning, although I opted for just one clove of garlic (I wanted the kids to like this).  Once everything was blended in the mini-chopper, it seemed thick and very lemony, so I added some extra olive oil, a few tablespoons of water, and a good handful of shredded parmesan.  And suddenly, it tasted just like summer with all that fresh basil and olive oil.  After mixing the sauce with the spaghetti I added about 1/3 cup of the starchy pasta water and topped it off with more parmesan.  There was a lot of sauce — the recipe says it is for 2 servings of pasta; I made 3 servings of pasta and there was still sauce leftover.

The verdict?  Amazing!  And so easy to make.  Lauren was clearly thrown off by the green color, but she was fine after a few bites.  Samantha loved this dish.  But she also commented, “I wish it was bucatini instead of spaghetti!”.  That’s my girl.