Unlike many of my friends, my mom very rarely made spaghetti and meatballs. To this day, I am still not really a fan of regular spaghetti with red sauce and much prefer a pesto, or simple drizzle of olive oil with some garlic and fresh parmesan. I've been making more pasta recently because of the ease and filling nature of such dishes, and when I saw the radishes (which gave me so many fits last year!) I thought about adapting my standby Cacio e pepe to include them in lieu of the dried chickpeas I am so fond of. This is one of those "everything and the kitchen sink" dishes- whatever you've got on hand, toss it in. It ends up being a little strange, but I've found that no matter what ends up in the pasta, it's always super delicious.
Cacio e Pepe e Radish
***Cacio e pepe loosely translates to pasta and pepper. The key to making this taste so good is to use some of the leftover pasta water to make the butter and pepper dominated "sauce." And I promise, it tastes significantly better than it looked!
1 lb spaghetti, cooked al dente
Bunch radishes w/ tops (Source: FFM) **my tops were pretty wilted so I was unable to use them :(
diced carrots
diced red bell pepper
Garlic
S&P
Butter
Fresh parmesan, asiago, or romano cheese
Leftover chicken from Crockpot chicken earlier in the week
Cook up that pasta al dente and reserve about 1 C of the "pasta water." Cut the radishes in half and coarsely chop the tops. Saute radishes,carrots, and red pepper in olive oil for about 5-8 minutes and then toss in the greens for another 5 minutes. Veggies will be browned and somewhat soft at this point. Dump cooked radishes, greens and pasta together into a large bowl. In the same skillet, melt 3 TBL butter over low heat and mix with the "pasta water" and copious amounts of freshly cracked pepper. Toss in your garlic and cook for about 1 minute. Pour over pasta and radishes, toss and add chicken, cheese and salt.
I have been eating out quite a bit these last few weeks so my CSA farm share goodies often get thrown into a side salad or something equally uninspiring. So I decided to showcase some of the great local Cleveland restaurants I've enjoyed in lieu of cooking. Most of you probably have eaten at some or all of those I will feature, but if you haven't- put it on your list for the next date night!
Even if you aren't native to Cleveland you probably are still caught up in Melt hysteria. Starting with their (originally) tiny flagship Lakewood location (which has expanded nearly every year I think!) to their newest location over in my neck of the woods on the Eastside, Melt Bar and Grilled has covered Cleveland in oozy gooey delicious cheese. This place is one of those concepts we've all probably thought up over a few too many beers but quickly pushed aside as something that would never make any real money. I mean, grilled cheese and all of it's variations are delicious, but a restaurant selling grilled cheese? Nah, it would never work. Well, for all of us that never patented the idea or took the plunge, a group of friends finally did and have built a small cheese empire for themselves. The lines are often long and the wait for food even longer. But that's not for a lack of service as the wait staff is always friendly and efficient, but more to do with the volume of business they do! If you don't have the time or don't want to wait, you can be served at their bar pretty quickly in my opinion. Take-out just isn't going to cut it as the decor lends a certain je ne sai qua to the whole experience. But if you are pressed for time, or are off in the head and don't have a penchant for cheese (seriously, who ARE you people????) you must at least go for the beer and desserts.
Wednesday night after the dinner rush was over a couple of friends and I found ourselves hankering for some dessert. It was too cold for ice cream and we didn't want anything particularly expensive OR fancy. Melt to the rescue! I must admit, I had never had room to eat dessert after one of their monster sammies but I was seriously missing out! Fried twinkies! Locally made cheesecake (ours was chocolate cookie dough I think) the size of your head (seriously!) and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Banana Bread Pudding!! The bread pudding comes with ice cream, caramel and chocolate fudge sauce and these cute goldfishy shaped cookies that I think were also chocolate. YUM. Three pints of Left Hand Milk Stout and we were a happy group. In hindsight, we probably could have ordered one dessert and shared it since they are so incredibly huge. But sometimes you just have to live a little and try all the flavors!
Melt Bar and Grilled
My life has been one series of experiments after another. What I always think are carefully formulated hypotheses and sets of plans usually ends up completely backwards from the way I intended. But then again research science is all about 90% failure! Much like my job in the lab, this frustrates me to no end in real life. Which is one reason why I'm not really sure if this is what I should really be doing for the rest of my life. Being a results driven person is both a blessing and a curse in that regard. However, when it comes to cooking, somehow I just don't have the same OCD compulsion that things should work out exactly how I planned for them to be. I think it would be good for me to be able to translate the same easy come, easy go, somewhat laissez faire, what will be will be attitude to the rest of my life. It usually serves me pretty well in the kitchen and even in the event of a cooking "failure" I find myself learning lots and having a great time doing it. Learning to enjoy the process is one of the greatest lessons in life, I think. Even when your mixer bowl spins wildly out of control, splattering batter all over the place, you forget an important ingredient or you cut yourself chopping veggies, life is still all about the process. It may not always be fun in those stages, but the end result, even if it's not particularly tasty, is that you will always be full. And that is just what I am trying to do- Live a Full Life!
Cornmeal Hotcakes with Heirloom Tomatoes and Farm Fresh Eggs
**Not wanting to rely on the old standby of a caprese salad (though I will be making one later this week!), I was looking for a way to use some more of the organic cornmeal we received a few weeks ago. I had been toying with the idea that cornmeal and blueberry pancakes would be great on Saturday morning, and then I realized they would probably work better as a savory dish. No real recipe here, it was a no brainer on a hot August day.
Make your favorite pancake recipe, substituting all but 1/4 of the flour for cornmeal. I added a little extra baking powder to my mix and it gave them a great texture. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, toss in some fresh corn off the cob. I would also recommend adding some cayenne or chili powder to your mix to just kick it up a little bit as mine were pretty bland without it.
Fry up some eggs, don't forget to s&p them while they cook! Slice up some heirloom tomatoes and sparingly S&P.
Pile up the hotcakes, tomato and egg and sprinkle some cheese on top. Serve with salsa made from heirloom tomatoes if you dont want just a slice of tomato on top. A little sour cream (or plain yogurt!) wouldn't hurt if you have it.
You can eat the leftover hotcakes with honey- just like eating a cornbread muffin!
Today was the first day I was able to log onto ChewsLocal and actually have time to write something. This past month has been crazy for a whole variety of reasons and I'm glad to see there are still some people checking the blog out despite the lack of posts!
Let's see, I finally uploaded pictures from the Tremont Ale Fest and Black Keys Concert. This is definitely an event that is going on my calendar for next year!
I shot a lovely wedding for some friends from church. Their new love was so inspiring to me and I wish them all the best! Photography is something I do outside of the lab and the kitchen to get some creative exercise, something I have needed a lot of lately! Then I photographed two of my closest friends to celebrate their engagement. They are getting hitched Nov. 13 and they are a wonderful couple.
Then I fooled around in lab making cells grow and then trying to kill them before heading off for a much needed vacation to beautiful Isla Mujeres, MX. The island always seems to slow life down a little bit and restore my soul. I am so grateful to Zina and Andrea for making the trip both possible and a blast.
Mostly I sat on the beach facing the beautiful turquoise waters reading a good book, or 5!
And of course we ate lots of local food and danced the night away on more than one occasion. You can't imagine how amazing it was to dance to music on a cliff overlooking the carribbean under the starry sky and witness a meteor shower. It couldn't have been a better vacation!
Looking at my pictures, I realize I didn't capture any of the incredible island food. Oh well, you'll just have to go there to try it out yourselves- it really is a foodie paradise. Now that I am back into lab full swing (and trying to get my manuscript published) I am hoping to get back into blogging more regularly. My life is still all over the place and cooking for one, although way more fun than I anticipated, means I dont do much of it! When I can cook for myself, I always fall back on an egg sammie. Fry up the egg, salt and pepper it, slice some cheese, tomatoes, some cilantro or spinach, a little mayo and you have the perfect sandwich comfort food. Cooking for one means there are less dishes and I always get to eat what I like and have leftovers too!
