Delicious easy, elegant appetizers to keep the starving hungry guys at bay!
FRIED OLIVES
Stuff the olives with your choice of meat or cheese
Roll in a small handful of flour
Roll in the egg
Roll in the Italian breadcrumbs
Flash fry in a small amount of oil in a small skillet
Toast some french bread or don’t toast it and top with pesto and radishes
My wonderful husband, Jesse, bought me a fabulous Emile Henry pizza stone for Christmas and I love it. It may indeed be my new favorite kitchen toy. I like to make pizza but I have never been able to get a crispy, darkened crust with my oven, voila use a pizza stone, it really works! Pizza is fun!You can put anything on it and for us it often becomes a base for salad. I love to top it with arugula or caesar salad. It’s a great Friday night meal.
To make a fast pizza you can use Pillsbury pizza dough or Central Market in Austin has a very good frozen dough that rivals home-made. Last night our pizza was very simple and oh so delicuous with fresh tomatoes and fresh mozzerlla.
PIZZA
To start I carmelized the tomatoes in a saucepan with a little olive oil, pinch of salt & pepper and about a 1/2 teaspoon of oregano and a few fennel seeds. Just let the tomatoes melt on low heat while you get the oven heated and the cheese sliced.
I heated my oven at 500 degrees for about 30 minutes with the stone in it.
Roll the dough out on a pizza peel that you have sprinkled with flour. Add some olive oil to the dough and smooth it around and then add the tomates and mozzerlla. Bake for about 12 minutes and enjoy home-made delicious pizza!
When I want comfort I want spaghetti and I mean strings like linguine, fettucine or thin spaghetti. No cute little shapes but strings as Dashiell calls it. Add a few meatballs and you’re on your way to cozy. Well the weather just turned a little chilly here in Austin, I think we are down to 35 degrees at night so spaghetti and meat balls come to mind. I don’t make this dish very often because I can’t stop eating it. I am going to uses my mom’s recipe for the meat balls except I am not using pork or veal. I’m against veal even though I’m eating beef. Okay, let me know what you think..
Meatballs
Beat the egg in a medium mixing bowl and add the meat and gently mix. Add all of the seasonings and then form the meat into 1 inch balls. Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a Dutch over at medium heat then start adding your meat balls. Don’t overcrowd as you want them to brown on all sides. Once they are brown take them out and set aside.
Tomato Sauce or gravy
In the same dutch oven add a little more olive oil and heat on low then ad
Sautee until onion and garlic are tender
Bring to a boil
Turn down to a simmer and add the meatballs and cook on low for an hour.
Boil 4 quarts of water with a teaspoon of salt and add your favorite pasta shape!
Define an easy after work dinner….Shrimp Scampi! Who needs 30 minute meals when you can have a delicious 15 minute meal? Right on! This is so delicious and simple. Toss with pasta or rice or load on to grilled bread or go light as we did with a big salad.
Heat the olive oil on low heat and add the garlic. Stir the garlic and add the fennel seeds and let both cook for a few minutes. Add the shrimp and the other spices and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes or until the shrimp are pink. Don’t overcook the shrimp. Add the white wine and stir for a minute or two to absorb the flavor. Dig in!
Cabrito, kid, chevon, are all names for baby goat. And whatever you want to call it I don’t eat it or cook it. BUT our friend Mike McIntosh and his lovely wife Julie Wickett invited us over Sunday afternoon for a bbq and that is what they were serving. Jesse and Dashiell were up for it so off we went. I tasted a small bite of the cabrito and it was delicious. I know I just said that I don’t eat baby goats but I had to try it because Mike is so sweet. Mike smoked it for hours in a special smoker that you add water to so the meat was moist and succulant. Our friend Tim made the tastiest pinto beans I’ve ever had. He did not skimp on the salt pork and they were really a meal in themselves. Julie made a lovely peach sorbet for dessert that hit the spot on this summer evening. I made fatoush, a Lebonese bread salad. Fatoush can be made with lettuce or not and adding garbanzo beans works too. I did add the lettuce this time, however, I have made it in the past with just the tomatoes, cucumbers and spring onions.
Fatoush
- 1/2 head of romaine lettuce
- 1 container of grape tomatoes
- 2 cucumbers
- 4 spring onions
- 1/2 cup of mint
- 1/2 cup of flat leaf parsley
- 1/2 cup of olive oil
- 1/4 cup of lemon juice
- salt
- pepper
- pita bread, cut into triangles
Cut all of the vegetables into bite size pieces, chop the mint and parsley and add to the salad. Mix the olive oil and lemon juice together and season with salt and pepper. Toss with the vegetables. Toast the pita bread in the oven and toss with the salad.
Once a month I get together with 10 or so brilliant, witty and beautiful womem to discuss a book that we’ve read. We all bring wine and or an appetizer and some of the most delicious desserts I’ve ever tasted. This month it’s at my house so I’m serving an olive plate and roma tomatoes. I baked the tomatoes slowly for hours and then added some buffalo mozzerella and fresh basil. This is a good recipe for store bought tomatoes that don’t always have a lot of flavor. It’s kind of like making them into sun dried tomatoes but in the oven.
Tomatoes
- 10 roma tomatoes, cut in half
- Olive oil, about 2 tablespoons
- 1/4 pound of fresh buffallo mozzerella
Bake for 3 hours at 325 degrees or a little longer depending on your oven. You want the tomatoes to collapse and be all gushy. Let them cool and sprinkle with salt and pepper. You could then use oregano, or fresh basil or thyme. I like dried oregano because that is the way my mom and Aunt Angie would eat garden tomatoes in New York and the taste has stayed with me. FYI–I tried to lessen the three hour cooking process by turning on the confection oven and it dried the tomatoes out and made them like sun-dried. So if you want them to be like that; then go for the confection oven.
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