Risotto with Broccoli and Sausage

Dinner inspiration: ravishing and flavorful, creamy risotto with sausage and broccoli

This morning I finally (!!) had the time to go to Trader Joe's for my grocery shopping. My favorite location in West Los Angeles is the "new" store on Olympic. It's great! It has everything you need. It's big enough to go around accident-free with a cart. And the parking lot on top of the building is actually huge! The only problem is, whoever designed that rooftop space, was clearly not thinking that people would be moving around with heavy carts. It's sloped and quite dangerous. No matter where you park, your car is not on a flat surface!
So picture this: I open the trunk of my SUV, a soccer AND a basketball roll out in the middle of the lot. With my uncanny reflexes I quickly grab both balls ... letting go of my super full cart... which slowly rolls away from my car, in the middle of the parking lot, and extremely close to another parked car. With an unbelievably graceful jump I stop it with my foot before it crushes. Oh yes! Can you imagine it?!?
Now, I really want to know: whose mind is behind this parking lot?
I am positive this has happened before! Friends from LA, anybody else?!?
Going back to my groceries, I picked up sausages and broccoli - I love the TJ's bag of organic florets. So convenient! And here is what I made for dinner:


Ingredients: serving 4                                         Printable Recipe

• 6 oz of organic broccoli florets
• 2 sausages 
• half onion, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• half cup of fontina cheese, shredded
• half cup of Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
• 2 cups of vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 peperoncino (hot pepper) - optional (if sausage is mild)
• salt to taste
• 1.5 cups of arborio rice

Preparation time: 40 minutes
Directions:
Step 1: Saute' the chopped onion in the olive oil for about 3 minutes, until lightly golden.

Step 2: Stir in the sausages cut in pieces and without casing. Saute' for a few minutes breaking the sausage in smaller pieces with a wooden spoon.

Step 3: When the sausage is brownish, add the rice and the broccoli, and cook for about 1 minute. Stir.

Step 4: Add one cup of stock, and cook the rice, stirring occasionally and adding more stock (and/or water) if needed. The rice should be fully cooked in 18-20 minutes. Adjust with salt if needed.  It should be not too dry and not too runny at the end... just perfect :)

Step 5: When the rice is cooked al dente,  add the fontina, the Parmesan cheese and the butter. Mix well, cover the pot and let rest for 3-4 minutes. Your risotto will now be rich and creamy!

Serve immediately. Buon appetito!!

Quick and Easy, Crispy Calamari Steak

Crispy and tender, quick and easy fried calamari steak

Happy Monday! I hope you enjoyed your weekend. Mine was really great and relaxing!
Today is the last day of vacation before school (and all the usual craziness) starts tomorrow. And I'm NOT ready! My boys can't wait to start, so I guess at least they must be ready. And that's what's most important!
Today I want to show you how you can make a super easy dinner for one of these lazy, vacation days. This dish is perfect for all those times you are not in the mood for spending too much time in the kitchen. All you need is to buy the calamari, and the rest you probably already have in your pantry.
As I mentioned before, I love calamari! They are versatile, not expensive, and have a sweet and delicate taste that easily combines with many ingredients. The calamari that you find at the store, most likely, have been previously frozen, which makes them more tender. Also, mine were already tenderized. Perfect and delicious!
Here is the recipe:

Ingredients: serving 4

• 4 calamari steaks, total of about 1.25 lb
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup of plain bread crumbs
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 fresh lemon
• fresh Italian parsley, chopped

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Directions:

Step 1: In a bowl or dish, beat the egg with salt and pepper. Soak the calamari steaks in the egg.

Step 2: Dip each steak in the bread crumb, pressing down so that it sticks to the egg, on both sides.

Step 3: In a large skillet heat the olive oil over medium-high heat, and cook the calamari about 4 minutes on each sides, until nicely golden.

Step 4: Sprinkle with salt, lemon juice and parsley.

Serve immediately over a fresh salad, or your favorite vegetable. 

Buon Appetito!

CROCKPOT PORK LOIN

This recipe is ultra easy, ultra fast and ultra delicious!! What more can you ask for? And, oh, did I mention...it cooks by itself in the Crockpot!!

The end result is moist, fall apart tender, sweet-ish, completely full flavored and very versatile. It is going directly into my "make often" recipe box!!

2 pounds (approx.) pork loin (tenderloin will work too)
1/4 cup LOW SODIUM soy sauce (regular will be too salty)
1 tablespoon regular old yellow mustard
1/4 cup real maple syrup (not pancake syrup)
2 tablespoons canola oil (or vegetable oil)
2 tablespoons dried onion flakes
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt

Put the oil in your crockpot and rub it around to cover the cooking surface. Put the pork loin in.

Mix everything else and pour over the meat.  Put the lid on and cook on LOW for 6 hours. Turn it over half way through if you can, but its  not necessary.

After 6 hours, remove meat and thicken the sauce (if you want to) and put the meat back in. Whether you thicken the sauce or not, is just a matter of preference, it tastes the same.

NOTE: I use this recipe using a 2 pound pork loin roast, but a tenderloin will work too. I haven't tried the recipe with any other cut of pork.

NOTE: Make sure you use low sodium soy sauce or the final dish might be a tad salty for you.

Almond Cookies - Pasticcini alle Mandorle

Simple, elegant, nutty and chewy almond cookies

Here is one of my favorite pasticcini  (fine Italian small pastries). These almond cookies are a classic that you find in most pasticcerie in Italy. Usually decorated with a whole almond, like I did, or a candied cherry. Either way, deliciously sweet!
These cookies are very easy to make and, I have to say, extremely easy to eat! Intensely nutty, perfectly chewy on the inside, slightly crisp on the outside. Try them and they may become your favorite pasticcini too!
And here is a picture of me enjoying an amazing day at the beach :-)

Ingredients: to make about 30 cookies                              Printable Recipe

• 3 cups (300 gr) of almond meal/flour
• 1.5 cups (270 gr) of sugar
• 1/4 of a teaspoon of almond extract
• 4 egg whites
• about 30 whole almonds to decorate

Preparation time: total 3.5 hours (30 minutes to prepare, 3 hours inactive)

Directions:
Step 1: In a large bowl, mix the sugar with the almond flour.

Step 2: Mixing with a spoon, add the almond extract and the egg whites, one at the time.

Step 3: Place the mixture into a piping bag and make round shapes on a silicone mat if you have it, or parchment paper over a baking sheet. Place one almond in the center of each cookie.

Step 4: Let the cookies sit for about 3 hours, or more (up to 12) outside the refrigerator. I placed mine into the turned-off oven.

Step 5: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). If  you placed the cookies in the oven to rest, like I did, take them out of the oven before preheating it! When the oven is nice and hot, bake the cookies for about 7-8 minutes. Check to make sure they don't burn.

Let them cool off ... and enjoy!

Fresh and Light Couscous Salad

Fresh, light, fast and healthy couscous salad. 

Perfect for your next picnic at the beach!

I can't believe that my boys will start school in a week. ONE WEEK! 

And it's still the middle of summer. As much as I was not ready for school to end in June, I am definitely not prepared now to get back. Not looking forward to going back to the usual: getting up early in the morning, eating a quick breakfast, packing lunches, getting everybody dress super fast, rushing out of the door before 8, and speed to get to school on time. And not to mention that all the after school activities will start right away too! As usual, I'll be the designated driver :-)

So I'm really going to do my best to enjoy our last few beach days. Today we went to this beautiful hidden spot, Dume Cove in Malibu. Amazing! Very quiet and absolutely beautiful. Here are two pictures... sorry but I did not have my camera with me, just my phone.

And as usual, I brought a picnic lunch. For the occasion, I made this fresh and light couscous salad with organic tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, cucumber and tasty olives. Perfect for these hot summer days! Here is the recipe for you:

Ingredients: serving 4 people:

• 1.5 cups of pearl couscous
• 2 organic tomatoes
• 2 small (persian) cucumbers, or one medium cucumber
• 4 oz fresh mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup of pitted olives, I used Kalamata
• salt to taste
• oregano or fresh basil leaves
• 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Directions:
Step 1: Cook the couscous as directed on the box.
Step 2: Cut the tomatoes, cucumbers and mozzarella cheese in small cubes. Slice the olives. Place everything with the olive oil in a large bowl, and season with salt.

Step 3: When the couscous is ready, drain and run under cold water to stop from overcooking.
Add to the bowl, mix well and sprinkle with oregano (or with basil leaves cut in small pieces).
Serve immediately or at room temperature.

Buon Appetito!

Meatless-balls with Eggplants - Polpette con Melanzane

Yummy vegetarian meatless-balls (polpette) with eggplants. 

Every bite filled with delightful Mediterranean flavors.

Tonight I prepared an easy, quick, super healthy, vegetarian one-dish meal.
And so deliciously Mediterranean!
This is one of Chef Jamie Oliver's recipe that I found in the Jamie Magazine Italia. You can click here to read the original recipe. As you can see, the name of this dish is actually "polpette alle melanzane", where "polpette" translates into meatballs. But the Italian word doesn't imply that there is meat in the balls.  Just chopped or ground ingredients, mixed together with eggs and breadcrumbs, and shaped in balls. So, I'm calling these: meatless-balls with eggplants :-)
Note, what I wrote down here is not a translation of the recipe in the magazine. As usual, I'm giving you a step-by-step guide of what I made. With pictures for each step.
As you know, one of the things I like most about my blog, after the cooking... and well, eating what I cook, is taking pictures of my food! I will be sending one of these photos to the Jamie Magazine Italy, which is offering a photography contest.
I have to say, meatballs are not as photogenic as cookies or cakes. No mouthwatering chocolate, no crispy white powder sugar, no colorful pieces of fruit ... Just plain brown meatballs! But these were very delicious, and I hope my pictures shows it!
Now I just need to choose which of my pictures to send. I'm not sure yet.
Any preferences?!?
... Wish me luck :-)

Ingredients: to make about 18 small balls, serving 4               Printable Recipe

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• one large eggplant
• 1 cup (100 gr) of shredded mozzarella
• 1 cup (100 gr) of bread crumbs, plain
• 1/2 cup (25 gr) of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup (25 gr) pine nuts, toasted
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 egg
• a handful of basil leaves

For the sauce:

• one garlic clove, crushed
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 15 oz (about 440 gr) of crushed tomatoes

Preparation time: 45 minutes

Directions:
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C). In a large skillet or grilling pan, grill the eggplant cut in thin slices. I used two large skillets to make it faster. Season with salt.

Step 2: Cut the grilled eggplants in cubes, and place in a large bowl together with the rest of the ingredients: mozzarella, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts, garlic, egg and basil (minced).

Step 3: Mix well and roll the mixture in small balls. Place the eggplant balls in an oven pan sprinkled with olive oil, and bake for 15 minutes. Turn them over halfway.

Step 4: In a separate saucepan, cook the olive oil, with the garlic and crushed tomatoes for about 10 minutes. Season with salt, and serve with basil together with the eggplant balls.

Buon Appetito!