What's cooking at Jerk Castle . . .

Pizza w/ arugula salad and lemon-parmesan dressing

Since I ended up doing most of the cooking, Wendy has recruited me to put together this post.  Luckily, It's hard to go wrong with sea salt, cheese, and bread.  Add some baby arugula salad, and that's pretty much the recipe.  Easy and tasty.   Wendy found this recipe in bon appetit, and we simplified it a little and were pretty happy with the results.  Instead of making our own dough, we defrosted some ready-made pizza dough from Trader Joe's.  And instead of a pizza stone we don't have, we used the smooth side of a long, rectangular grill pan.  The grill pan worked well, but the weak link of an otherwise good recipe, was the Trader Joe's dough.  Reputation shmeputation, we have found TJ's premade goods consistently disappointing.  Next time, we'll use a tip from Bobby Flay, and get the dough from a local pizzaria.  We've done that a few time before, and it works great, and it's like 3 bucks.  As for the preparation, I floured our counter, work the dough out to about 1/4 inch thickness in roughly the shape of the grill pan, and placed it on there.  Brushed the top of the dough with olive oil, added sea salt (don't skimp), and shredded mozzarela.  Put the pizza in a preheated 425 degree oven, and cooked it until the cheese was bubbling and started to brown.  About 8 minutes. 

While the pizza was in the oven, putting the arugula salad together is simple.  Cut the tomato (we used a medium tomato, not cherry tomatoes), and set the arugula leaves aside.  Put the lemon, parmesean, lemon zest, and oil in a blender and blend.  Toss the arugula, tomato, and dressing.  When the pizza comes out of the oven, I slid it on to a wood cutting board, and put the salad on top.  Cut into pieces, and you're good to go.

Arugula salad with lemon-parmesan dressing
http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/cookingclub/2009/04/arugula_salad_with_lemon_parmesan_dressing

Pizza dough
http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/cookingclub/2009/04/overnight_pizza_dough

Chick Pea Patties

I must admit that this recipe did not come out particularly well- it was bland and mushy. . .but as Steven reminded me- we are writing about what we are making at home - the good and the bad. .  so here it is- chick pea patties that left something to be desired. . .  perhaps you can give it a try and let me know how yours turned out. . . or skip it and leave it to us to eat bland chick pea mush. .

We are making arugula mozarella pizza tomorrow to make up for the patties.  . . i'm very excited and will post soon!

Recipe courtesy of Real Simple:

In a food processor, pulse 15.5 ounce of canned chickpeas (rinsed), 1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley, a chopped garlic clove, 1/4 teaspoon cumin and 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper. Scoop the mixture into eight 1/2 inch patties and coat lightly with flour. Two tablespoons of flour should suffice.

Heat two tablespoons olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. Cook the patties for about 3 minutes per side until golden brown.

Grilled Hanger Steak with Sauteed Brocoli Rabe

It has been a hell of a week at work so i've been a delinquent blogger . . . i will have to catch you all up on our at home feasts this past week (fewer than usual as i often resorted to picking up food in our neighborhood)

We did stay at home this past saturday night and had a favorite of ours- marinated grilled hanger steak. . . we make this steak every once in a while with some type of potato and greens- this past weekend we had it with roasted potatoes and onions and sauteed brocoli rabe (using a really super easy and insanely fast recipe for the brocoli that we learned about from watching a foodnetwork show a few nights earlier- see below.)

The marinade for the steak is a concoction we actually came up with and particularly love- 

App. 3/4 cup low sodium soy sauce

App. 1 tbl spoon rice vinegar

2-3 garlic cloves, chopped

2-3 scallions, chopped

App. 1 tbl spoon toasted sesame oil

App. 1 tbl spoon honey

App. 2 tbl spoons brown sugar

And of course here is a pic of the steak grilling (along with some cloves of garlic we threw on there)- i find that the hanger steak is a wonderful cut to use with this marinade- because it is so thin a great crust forms when grilled. .

warning- as you can see, grilling the steak results in tons of smoke so frantically waiving a towel at the smoke detector may be required.

Now for the brocoli rabe-i really hardly ever eat brocoli rabe- i found it a bit intimidating due to its bitterness- but after following this easy blanching/sauteeing recipe and then adding some lemon juice - we were pleasantly suprised at the lack of bitterness and the crunchiness of the greens.

Here is the recipe we used and then added some lemon juice:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sauteed-broccoli-rabe-recipe2/index.html

Chicken with Saffron Rice

After the bread and romesco dip (with some cheese of course) we moved on to chicken with saffron rice. . while looking at catologues (why am i getting a ton these days when i should not be shopping?), i came across this recipe in the williams and sonoma catologue and decided to give it a try- who knew?

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/recipedetail.cfm?objectid=CCC4EA84-AC9C-3A66-00CB2C160DD3C691

We have now made this twice - its fairly easy but needs quite a long cooking time so a good weekend recipe. . . we left out the olives (i'm not really an olive fan- i know- no fish- no olives- very lame) so we had to add more salt.

We also made some grilled asparagus (I swear I cook other greens)- wouldn't of even mentioned it but i liked this picture:

Homemade Bread and Spanish Romesco dip

it was a lovely lazy sunday- we had my mother in law, brother in law, sister in law and nephew over for lunch and had a full day of eating, hanging out in the apartment and pretty much not doing much. . . steven made homemade bread which came out just perfect- crunchy crust and super soft inside.

Steven has made bread many times before using the no-knead bread recipe which was posted in the ny times on November 8, 2006- we had a bit of a breakthrough because he split the dough and baked it in two separate smaller dutch ovens so we had two perfect smaller loaves.  He also replaced one cup of the flour with wheat flour . . . i loved it and ate plenty. . . Here is the recipe:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

And I made this romesco sauce for the first time- salty- almondy and red peppery- easy and perfect to put out for an appetizer before we sat down to chicken with saffron rice (post coming your way with that recipe so don't you worry).

This will be a party stand-by:

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/romesco-sauce-00000000008613/index.html

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad

 

The wonders of fish sauce . . . wisk a little fish sauce, rice vinegar and sugar and you cannot go wrong. I love vietnamese food and have been enjoying learning how to make it at home since vietnamese restaurants are few and far between in brooklyn (although Nicky's on Atlantic makes a fantastic vietnamese sandwich).

Here is the recipe-i can't wait to eat the leftovers for lunch.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vietnamese-Rice-Noodle-Salad-232173

The noodles seem to pair well with anything and could easily be made with tofu if you wanted to keep it vegetarian.  Gourmet pairs it with carmelized grilled pork- Steven doesn't eat pork so the first time we made this we substituted chicken- pretty good but i found the carmelizing to be a bit of a pain.  We then had it with grilled skirt steak and that was fabulous. (we made a quick marinade for the steak using soy sauce, rice vinegar, a little sugar, garlic, salt, pepper and chopped green onions)

Here is the carmelized pork recipe that Gourmet had posted with the noodles:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vietnamese-Caramelized-Grilled-Pork-232160

Last night I made monkfish for Steven to have with the noodles using this recipe courtesy of Jamie Oliver. . .

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/grilled-or-roasted-monkfish

(although i took the easy way out instead of grinding the salt with lemon peel, i just salted the fish- i then just drizzled some lemon juice while sauteeing.)

And now if I can only get up the courage to try my hand at pad thai. . .

Red pepper and Spinach Fritatta

We finally had a Sunday morning at home to enjoy breakfast at the apartment so i decided to use my new cast iron skillet and make a fritatta. My friend Pam is famous for her fritatta but i actually had never really made one. . . looked up a few recipes and came up with this one printed in The Boston Globe.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/articles/2008/06/25/spinach_and_red_pepper_frittata/

It came out wonderfully fluffy and savory- we used jack cheese instead of parmesan and added some orange peppers because we had them. My only tip is that next time I would use a bit more cheese.  what can be better? sunday morning with coffee and eggs with cheese. . .and we watched Michael Clayton (Sunday morning with George Clooney ain't bad either).

Here in all its glory:

If you have any favorite fritatta recipes please comment and include them. . .