recipephile

Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes with Asiago Cheese

A few nights ago I had a dinner party for my trainer and a few of the other trainers from my Gym. My good friend Timmy helped me make risotto, roasted heirloom tomatoes, butter lettuce salad and chocolate chip cookies (I use the recipe on the back of the Toll House bag, but add just a tad of almond extract). The roasted tomatoes were a BIG hit.

These are pretty easy to make, but they take a while so patience is a virtue here. You MUST buy good tomatoes for this recipe, ripe and delicious. Stay away from hot house and/or beefsteak. HEad to your local farmer's market or gourmet grocery and get your hands on the best tomatoes you can find.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. If you use large tomatoes you will have to cut them in half and place them cut side up on a cookie sheet. Drizzle each tomato with a little olive oil and a dash of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place in the oven and let roast for 4-5 hours. About 20 minutes before serving place about 2 tbsp of grated Asiago cheese on top of each tomato. Crank up the heat to 350 and place back in the oven. When the cheese is fully melted, remove from the oven, platter and serve.

Ratatouille

I wrote earlier about the Oscar-movie themed dinner that Jeffrey & I made this past Sunday for several friends. Last week, we brainstormed about what foods to prepare, and settled almost immediately on meat pies and ratatouille as our core dishes. For both of us, Sweeney Todd and Ratatouille were among our favorite films last year, and of course they both tied in perfectly to a concept dinner served on Oscar night.

Jeffrey had made ratatouille twice last fall, but I was out of town for both occasions. During our menu planning for this past weekend, he told that he first tried to make the dish as was done in the movie, with the vegetables sliced thinly using a mandoline and then delicately arranged. This effort, in Jeffrey's words, fell flat on its face. Rather than being delicate, he said, it was just mushy. Frustrated but undaunted, on his next attempt he took what I thought was a daring risk and went robust instead of delicate. He abandoned the artful thinly sliced presentation, and he grilled the vegetables rather than sauteeing them. This was a departure from tradition. While I usually advocate for a skilled and reasoned sojourn away from convention, this time I was suspicious. He assured me that it had come out brilliantly. And after we made it together this past Sunday using that same method, I was convinced. The result is an unconventional but marvelous ratatouille.

Jeffrey's Ratatouille:

Ingredients:

2 t. salt, divided
4 eggplant (see note 1 below), cut into long thick slices
6 small zucchini (or 3 larger ones), cut into long thick slices
2 medium-large red onions, cut into ¾" slices
2 large red peppers, cored, cut in half and flattened
3 T. olive oil
6 cloves garlic, finely minced
8 Roma (plum) tomatoes, chopped
1 15½ ounce can crushed tomatoes, including the juice
¾ t. dried savory
¾ t. dried crushed fennel seed
¾ t. dried thyme
¾ t. dried oregano
½ t. fresh cracked pepper
1 bunch fresh basil leaves, cut into long slices

Rub in half of the salt onto the thick eggplant slices in order to leach out some of the bitterness. Set aside for an hour or so and then use a paper towel to pat dry the beads of liquid that collect on them.

Grill the vegetables: Scrape your grill and then spray a bit of non-stick spray on it. Fire it up on medium high heat (to about 375-400 degrees). Working in batches if you need to, grill the eggplant, zucchini, onion and pepper. About 3-4 minutes per side, perhaps a bit more time each side for the onion. Take special care not to overcook the eggplant and zucchini – you want the result to be firm, not mush. Remove the veggies from the grill, and let cool a bit. Dice everything into 3/4" to 1" cubes.

Make the sauce: heat olive oil in a large sauce-pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add the chopped fresh tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, the remaining salt and the dried spices. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes, until the fresh tomatoes have softened and some of the liquid from the can of tomatoes has evaporated. You will have what is basically a very savory tomato sauce.

Fold in the diced grilled vegetables and the fresh basil leaves into your tomato sauce, and serve.

This quantity easily fed 14 people as a side dish, and provided some leftovers to boot.

Note 1: on eggplant. We bought the very long skinny kind from Jeffrey's local farmers market at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco. It's fine to make this with the more traditional football shaped eggplant, but if so, then of course only use 2 eggplant rather than 4.

Note 2: Jeffrey, like me, is usually a fiend about using fresh rather than dried herbs. But we both agreed that in this dish, the smoky flavor of the veggies complemented the dried herbs. But I'm sure fresh would perfectly fine.

Roasted Artichokes

The last time my business partner was in town we took a long walk around the Castro, Noe Valley and Diamond Heights areas of San Francisco with my close friend Tim.  It was right before the holidays and as we strolled the hilly streets we worked ourselves up a huge appetite.  The walk ended at one of my favorite restaurants, Chow.  Chow serves incredible homestyle food with a twist and the appetizer we had on that slightly chilly day was perfect. 

I am a big fan of the artichoke, especially the heart and love them steamed, fried and cooked into just about anything (my mom makes a mean crab and artichoke dip), but the version at Chow was, although very simple, absolutely delicious.  The menu explained it in the simplest of terms... Roasted Artichoke with Lemon Aoli.  Hmmm... roasted?  None of us had ever had this vegetable in the roasted form, so we ordered it and absolutely loved the flavor and simple deliciousness.

Having just moved into a new apartment, I decided to have a housewarming and with the help of my friend Jeffrey we prepared and of course served the artichokes to our guests.  They are so very easy to make.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut the artichokes in half, remove the spiny ends of the leaves with kitchen scissors and place, cut side down, into an oiled roasting pan.  Slice lemon rounds and place underneath each artichoke half.  Finely dice a few cloves of garlic and place some underneath each choke.  Add some freshly ground black pepper and a dash of sea salt to each choke and roast, covered with foil, for an hour.

Remove and serve with Olive oil and lemon for dipping.

Roasted Bolinas Peppers

A few weeks ago I had the chance to eat at NOPA here in San Francisco.  The restaurant was amazing and their ingenuity with appetizers and entrees reminded me of the creativity you often find in San Francisco restaurants.

One of my favorite dishes at NOPA is their roasted pimentos.  So so simple and delicious, these peppers are roasted with olive oil for about 25 minutes and served with salt.  Every 10th pepper is hot hot hot and the others are only kind of hot.

While I was driving home from a hiking trip with my friend Nicolas (he took the picture of the peppers)  we happened upon an unmanned vegetable stand in Bolinas.  In addition to the Bolinas greens, kale and Brussels spouts, they also had bushes of mini peppers that looked exactly like the peppers I had at NOPA.

Roasted Radicchio

On my very last evening in Fire Island this summer I had a great group of friends over for a little dinner party. The theme was Italian and instead of planning the meal and heading to the store, I headed to the store to plan the meal.

There it sat in front of me. Having just been spritzed by the veggie spritzer that big round and red piece of radicchio was staring at me. It was glistening from its misting and begging to be placed into my cart. Reluctantly I picked it up not knowing what I would do to this bitter creature.

My mind went in a million different directions until I settled on something sweet to offset the bitter flavor. Hmmm... how about brown sugar, butter and balsamic vinegar and then roasted in the oven? Having settled on a flavor combination I dropped the bitter lettuce into my cart and went home to prepare.

Artichokes

On Saturday my friends Nick and Tim and I headed over to Noe Valley for the 24th St. farmers market. This one is small and falls into the very expensive category. So if you are willing to give up some of your hard earned dough for amazing produce I would highly suggest checking this one out.

My goal at the farmers market was to find everything I needed for a dinner party on Sunday and I would say that I got about 95% of what I needed right there. I spotted some amazing artichokes and decided that I would add steamed artichokes to the menu and there is nothing easier than steaming tasty artichokes.

I made four, but you can adjust the amount you use based on the size of stock pot that you have. Cut off the stem so that the bottom is flush with the large stock pot you will use to steam them in. Place about 3 or 4 inches of water and a tbsp of salt into the bottom of the pan. Drizzle olive oil over the tops of the artichokes. Cover and steam on medium heat for about 35 minutes. Check midway through to see if you need to add more water. You can pick one up with a pair of tongs and use a knife or toothpick to check for doneness. If it slides right in then the choke is done.

Remove, let cool and serve with melted butter or my favorite... mayonaise with a little bit of lemon and pepper added.