Risi e Bisi, Risi e Bisi, Risi e Bisi

How much fun is it to say risi e bisi? Go on, say it ten times fast, this can wait.

For those not in the know, it's a traditional Venetian dish of soupy rice with peas. My understanding is that its seen as child-like comfort food, soft, easy to digest, easy to like. However, because it is so simple, all the ingredients must be top-notch.

Having the horrible problem of not being able to follow a recipe, even a traditional one, I tweaked it. Instead of peas, we used fava beans. While in season, we must eat them at least once a week. They're a pain to prep but if you and a partner tag team, its less time consuming. And you can say risi e bisi aloud while you're doing it.

Risi e Bisi (sort of), adapted from the Food of Italy by Claudia Roden

I hesitated posting this because the beans at the market were starting to get too big and starchy, but some new vendors came with young tiny ones. If you can find the small ones, use favas. If not, you can always use peas, fresh or frozen.

2 slices pancetta or bacon , chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 TB olive oil
6 cups stock, if you use fresh peas you can make pea stock
1 cup Arborio rice
chopped parsley
pecorino, if using favas or else use parmesan

Saute pork with onion and olive oil until onion is translucent and soft. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the rice. Season with a good amount of salt and pepper. When rice is almost done about 15-20 minutes, add the favas or peas. Once everything is cooked, stir in the parsley and cheese. Serve.

This is supposed to be a first course, but it could be dinner with a salad or used as a side. Venetian grandmas must be tut-tutting me.

P.S. Anyone out there who can give me some photo hints? When I try to post a vertical photo here, it gets flipped around. I use Picassa for photo editing and I tried using the Blog This function, but it happened anyway. Help, please!

Southern Comfort

I don't know if you've heard or not, but it's been cold in California, really, really cold. When it gets like this, my body goes into hibernation preparation mode and demands warm, filling foods to prepare me for the long winter ahead. (The readers who live where it snows are scoffing at me now, but I'm a Southern Cali girl, I've only been in the snow once. Freezing cold weather is not good for the citrus, avocados or me)

It's traditional in the American South to harvest green tomatoes before the first freeze or even if you have too many growing during the summer. Because we live in sunny, usually freakishly warm California, we have tomatoes almost year round at the Farmers' Market. However, since the frost a lot of people harvested their tomatoes early and brought the remainder of the crops, still green, to sell. It's a hard job, but someone needs to help those farmers make good on a somewhat disappointing crop.

Fried Green Tomato Sandwiches with Chipotle Spread, adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

While I was making these, I realized that if one, who is of the pork-eating persuasion, added bacon to this it would make a good winter-time BLT.

1/2 cup mayonnaise (if its not homemade, I highly recommend the organic mayo from TJ's)
3/4 cup non-fat yogurt
2 chipotles, finely chopped
juice from 1/2 lime
1 large green tomato, sliced thickly
1 1/2 cup cornmeal
3 TB veg oil
6 slices sourdough bread
lettuce leaves


Combine mayo, yogurt, chipotles and lime juice in a bowl. Salt and pepper to taste.

Pour cornmeal onto a plate. Salt and pepper. Mix well. Using one hand as your clean hand and the other as your messy hand, coat both sides of the tomato slices in cornmeal. Set aside.

Heat veg oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat, when hot, add tomatoes. Fry until lightly browned, about 6 minutes per side. Line a plate with paper towels. When the tomatoes are done cooking, place them on the plate.

Toast bread. When cool enough to handle, spread chipotle mixture on toast. Line one side with lettuce and place tomatoes on the other. We all understand the mechanics of making a sandwich, yes?

Makes 3 sandwiches

If you're feeling particularly in need of comfort serve with oven fries.

Oven Fries

3/4 lb potatoes (I like Yukon Golds)
olive oil

Preheat oven to 425F.

Slice potatoes into fry-like shapes. Toss in a large bowl with as much olive oil as you can in good conscience consume, with salt pepper and/or any other seasoning that strikes your fancy. I like smoked paprika or seasoned salt.

Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and place in oven for 15 minutes, or until the side touching the pan is browned to your liking. Very carefully, flip fries over and return to oven for about another 15 minutes. Serve with extra chipotle sauce for dipping.

A Birthday and a Confession

This is what I made for my friend's birthday dinner last night:


C's Birthday Dinner Menu:

Red Butter Lettuce Salad with a Pomegranate Vinegar-Olive Oil Dressing and Pomegranate Seeds and Chevre
Pork Stew with Butternut Squash and Fennel over Soft Polenta
Apple Slices Sauteed in Browned Butter and Brown Sugar over Cinnamon Ice Cream from here
and lots of sparkling wine (Jacob's Creek Chardonnay-Pinot Noir Cuvee NV; which we both enjoyed and highly recommend)

C is gluten-intolerant so we had the stew over polenta instead of noodles as the recipe suggests. I actually preferred it that way. The polenta soaked up the liquid far better than noodles and was heartier. I am looking forward to leftovers today.

Pork Stew with Butternut Squash and Fennel over Soft Polenta, adapted from Bon Appetit

1 1/2 lbs 2-inch pieces trimmed pork shoulder (Boston butt)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp dried rubbed sage
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 TB olive oil
1/2 cup chopped pancetta or bacon (not smoked) about 2 oz
1 cup chopped onions
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
1 cup broth (I used veg because it was in my cupboard, but the recipe calls for chicken)
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 large fresh fennel bulb; cut into 1-inch cubes, reserve fronds
15 1 1/2-inch cubes peeled butternut squash

Place pork in a bowl. Mix next 6 ingredients in small bowl; sprinkle over pork, turning pork to coat evenly. Let stand 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F. Heat oil in oven-proof pot (that has a lid) over medium-high heat. Add pancetta/bacon and saute until beginning to brown, about 3 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer pancetta to medium bowl. Add enough pork to pot to just cover in a single layer, you may have to do this a few times; saute until brown, about 8 minutes. COOKING SCHOOL TIP: Do not move or turn meat until you can easily pick it up off the pot. If it sticks to the bottom, it means that the Maillard reaction (browning) has not finished. Wait until it has, your stew will be more flavorful this way. Using slotted spoon, transfer pork to bowl with pancetta. Repeat with remaining pork. Add onions and garlic to pot, saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes with juices, broth, wine, and pork mixture. Bring to boil, scraping up browned bits (the fond).

Cover pot; place in oven. Cook 1 hour. Add fennel and squash to stew. Cover and cook in oven until pork and vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. At this point, my meat wasn't quite done but the squash was. I ended up fishing out the squash because I didn't want to end up with puree and returned the stew to the oven for another half hour. The I returned the squash to the stew. My stew was a little to thick, so I added a bit more liquid. The original recipe recommends that you thicken the liquid by removing the solids and cooking down the liquid, but I didn't need to. Your results, as always, may vary. Taste for salt and pepper. Serve over egg noodles or polenta. Garnish with reserved chopped fronds.

Serves 4

Easy Slow Cooked Soft Polenta

1 cup coarse cornmeal, preferably stone-ground
5 cups liquid (water, stock, or broth)
3 TB butter
Freshly grated Parmesan, to taste.

Preheat oven to 350F. Or if you are lucky enough to have an oven big enough for both the stew and the polenta cook simultaneously. I am not. Grease oven-safe pot. In pot, stir together cornmeal and liquid until there are no lumps. Add 1 TB butter. Bake in oven for 80 minutes. Remove from oven and stir in remaining butter, cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Easy, no? If you prefer your polenta softer, add more liquid. Firmer? Add less.

The Confession: I think I need to give up the ghost and admit I am now firmly re-entrenched in the omnivore category of human diets. The partner is still a pescatarian, so most recipe posts here will continue to be vegetarian and all though I am eating some meat in no way will it be everyday. I prefer a more flexible diet but I can't imagine making meat the center of most meals. Not only is it pretty selfish for humane, environmental and sustainability reasons, it's also boring and I enjoy meatless meals and like the challenge of creating them. For these reasons, any meat I do purchase needs to be humanely raised and organic. Yes, it is more expensive but since it's not something I am going to indulge in too often, it's do-able. And I do believe that meat ought to be an indulgence, not a requirement. What do you think about that? I'm planning on the reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, has anyone out there read it yet? What did you think about it? If you eat meat, how do you explain why? If you don't, why don't you? I'm all ears.

RECIPE: Beet Greens with Spanish Flavors

Or Meredith Entertains Herself by Making Dinner and Taking Pictures

The partner is out this evening going to see our favorite comedian, the exceeding funny and unbelievably sexy executive transvestite. This was a very late occurrance and I am horribly jealous that there was only one ticket. However, that means that I get to spend the evening enjoying my own company. How does one do that if you are me? Silly, you make dinner and then think about what other things you whip up in the kitchen when no one is watching.

I had great plans earlier to make fennel potato soup but when I opened the fridge to scavange myself some dinner, the beet greens I had saved from Sunday's salad were staring me down. That's okay, I needed to up my veggie quotient for the day anyway.

I chopped up a small onion and garlic and sauteed them in olive oil. I added the greens cut into ribbons and let cook in the water still clinging to the leaves.

After the greens cooked down a bit, I salted and peppered, then added some currants and pine nuts. Originally, I planned to put in raisins, but I thought that they might be too much sweet in one bite. Currants it is then.

While the greens were cooking, I starting boiling an egg. I think that a poached egg would be better, but for the life of me I cannot make one. Perhaps, soft boiled, so the yolk is still runny and delicious? Maybe, if I didn't overcook it. Oops.

I added a shot of sherry vinegar to the pan and plopped it all on my plate, crumbled a few bits of goat cheese over and broke, my not very runny egg over.

If there were anchovies to be had, they would have been included as well, but alas, it was not to be. A nice dinner for one and I only dirtied a bare minimum of cooking utensils. What else have I got in the fridge?

RECIPE: Easter Dinner Eggstravaganza!

After volunteering to make dessert for the boy's family's Easter supper, I ended up making the whole thing because I wormed my way into his mommy's kitchen, with her permission, of course. The best part is that we made it sans recipes (mostly) and in under two hours!

We had: Salmon Roasted on a Bed on Meyer Lemon, Brown Butter Orzo with Almonds and Dill, Steamed Asparagus and Broccoli and Homemade Ricotta with Balsamic Berries. Everything turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

For the Salmon: Preheat oven to 450F. Slice two large lemons (Meyer, if you've got them) very thinly and place half of the slices on a baking sheet. Rub a big piece salmon with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper on each side. Place salmon atop lemon slices. Put remaining lemon slices on top of fish. Bake until salmon is cooked through about 15-25 minutes depending on how big the piece of salmon is.

For orzo: Cook a pound of orzo in boiling salted water. While orzo is cooking, melt 1 stick of butter in a saucepan. Add 3/4 cup slivered almonds. Cook until butter and nuts begin to brown. Drain pasta. Toss with butter, nuts, and 1/3 cup snipped dill. Salt and pepper. Add the zest of one lemon and the juice of half of a lemon.

For the Ricotta with Honey and Berries: Make ricotta. While ricotta is chilling, prep about 4 cups of assorted berries (we had strawberries, raspberries and blackberries). Toss fruit gently with 3 TB sugar and 3 TB balsamic vinegar. Let sit for 45 minutes. Taste for more sugar or vinegar. Mix drained ricotta with 1 tsp vanilla and 1/2 cup of honey. Mix well. Taste for salt and more honey if desired. In a bowl serve a dollop of cheese with the berries. A sprig of mint on top would be pretty.