At the very least this dish proves that you can put just about anything you have on hand in Pasta Salad and wind up with a winner…even if it does sound vaguely like something MacGyver would make out of old snowblower parts.

Anyhoo, in this particular case we’d had quite a few odds ‘n ends lying around that we really wanted to eat – Sweet Chicken Apple Sausage, Farfalle, Radishes, etc. – but, though they sounded great individually, they didn’t really seem like they went together all that well until we struck upon the whole Pasta Salad idea.

We wound up with what is truly a greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts dish with a deep well of flavors that pleases on many levels. There’s body and a satisfying bite provided by the mini Farfalle pasta. The Sausage adds sweetness and meatiness, and the radishes are crunchy and spicy. Add a sprinkle of diced Green Onions, a little chopped fresh Parsley and a zesty Lemon dressing and you’ve got a fabulous and unorthodox Pasta Salad recipe. Go figure…

Everything but the kitchen sink:

• 1 package (12 oz) Mini Farfalle, cooked Al Dente in salted water, rinsed in cool water and drained.
• 4 Sweet Chicken Apple Sausage, sliced thin and sauteéd over medium-high heat until slightly browned. Allow to cool.
• 8 oz Mushrooms, sliced (we used a package of the presliced jobbies).
• 2-3 Green Onions (Scallions to the hoity toity among you), diced.
• 4 or 5 Radishes, thinly sliced.
• A handful of Fresh Italian Parsley, finely chopped.
• Juice of one Lemon.
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil.
• Salt & Pepper.
• Parmesan Cheese for sprinkling.

Der Instrukshuns:

• For the Lemon Dressing whisk the Lemon Juice and Olive Oil together and season it to taste with Salt & Pepper.
• In a largish bowl toss the the Pasta, Sausage, Mushrooms, Radishes, Lemon Dressing, and the Chopped Parsley. Garnish with the Green Onion and the Parmesan Cheese. Eat eat eat.

Thoughts (yes, we have them from time to time):
Though the Chicken & Apple Sausages can be a little pricey (ours were about $5 for a package of 4) the rest of the ingredients are very affordable and more than offset their high price. We feel that this is a case where sacrificing the budget a bit on one of the ingredients pays off with big flavor rewards.

Also, the Lemon Dressing can be a little tart depending on your lemons. For most of our batches of this salad the Chicken & Apple Sausages were sweet enough to add balance to the flavors. But if you need a touch more sweetness in your dressing you could add a little honey or sugar or even substitute Seasoned Rice Vinegar. Just be sure to adjust your Lemon Juice and Salt accordingly.

If there is a better way to cook a pizza than on the grill then we haven’t seen it (which is probably because a better way doesn’t actually exist and whoever says anything different is a dirty, filthy liar…right?) Just imagine it: the perfect crispy-on-the outside-and-soft-and-steamy-on-the-inside crust smothered in gooey bubbling Mozzarella and all of your favorite toppings. Now imagine it with an awesome slightly-smokey fresh-off-the-grill flavor. Now imagine that it only took about 5 minutes (seriously! 5 minutes!!) to cook. See where we’re going with this?

As usual we were a little late jumping on this particular culinary bandwagon but we’ve definitely been making up for lost time. Over the past couple of weeks there have been several incarnations of our take on Grilled Pizza – some vastly more successful than others.

The photo at the top there is of our first foray into the dark and murky world of pizza grilling. The extreme close-up is the by-product of the rather rustic (Julie’s word) condition of the crust which was oblong and generously charred. We stuck with the basic tomato sauce for this one and then added some leftover grilled chicken, fresh Basil, and mozzarella. We finished the whole thing off with a drizzle of Olive Oil. All rusticness aside it turned out pretty darn good, we thought.

The perfectly prepared number you see below here is from pizza grilling day #2, is the work of she-who-shall-forever-be-named-Grillmaster Julie, and handily put to shame the disastrous turn Gavin had taken at the grill just minutes before (oh, the shame…). We’ll spare you the gruesome story and gory photos of that particular train wreck.

This one here is topped with Olive Oil, Fresh Mozzarella, some shredded Rotisserie Chicken and some fresh Basil leaves. The crust we used is the fresh Spelt Pizza Dough from LifeSource Natural Foods. We chose it for no other reason than they were out of the regular kind. The Spelt variety was nummy but we discovered that we had to handle it very gently lest we poke numerous holes in it (hence the aforementioned train wreck).

While the recipes we found online varied in their levels of commitment to the dough-from-scratch scenario, we finally opted for the dough-from-the store scenario and found that the quality of our pizzas have suffered nary a bit. Yes, making dough from scratch is earthy and satisfying (and messy, and time-consuming) but – trust us on this – go to the store…buy the dough.

Also, you may be tempted after reading this recipe to augment the plain-sounding tomato sauce in one way or another which obviously is your prerogative. However, we would like to urge you to give it a go as we have suggested instead. The mashed up canned Italian Tomatoes are shockingly good and pack tons of bright, authentic tomatoey flavor. Divert your creative energies to the toppings and leave the sauce as a base flavor – you won’t regret it, we promise…

What you’ll need:

• Dough: 1 lb purchased fresh pizza dough – probably enough for 2 to 4 9inch pizzas.

• Sauce: Olive Oil, or 1 14oz can of Italian Plum Tomatoes (LifeSource again) dumped into a bowl and thorough mushed up with your hand, or all of the above…

• Toppings: Sliced Cooked Chicken, Fresh Mozzarella, Fresh Basil Leaves, Crushed Red Chili Flakes, Grated Parmesan, Roasted Veggies, Pepperoni, Salami, etc.

How to do it:

• Preheat your grill to medium-high heat. We have a gas grill so we just turned the knob to medium-high. Those of you with charcoal will have to fend for yourselves…
• On a generously floured surface (like a largish cutting board, something portable is a big help we found), separate the dough into grapefruit sized balls, dust them with flour, and wrap them with plastic wrap. Working with one dough ball at a time and using your fingers, a rolling pin, an empty wine bottle, etc. roll out the dough into a roughly 8 to 9 inch round and about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick. Make sure that there’s enough flour under the dough round to let it slide around a little so you can get it on the grill.
• Gather up all your ingredients and your prepared round and take them out to the grill.
• Without burning yourself – or setting the cutting board on fire- in one smooth motion slide the pizza dough off of the cutting board and onto the grill.
• Wait about a minute. The dough should just start to crisp up quickly and scorch a little around the edges. When that happens brush some Olive Oil on the top side and then flip it over.
• Working quickly add your sauce and toppings and then close the lid for about 2 minutes. Once the Mozzarella is all bubbly and wonderful the pizza is done. Use a spatula or two to transfer it to a pizza pan or another cutting board or whatever.

Thoughts:

We found that it was best to just work with one ball of dough at a time. We couldn’t find any reliable train-wreck-mitigating way to keep the prepared rounds from sticking to each other if you made them all at once and stacked them up. If there’s more than one of you working on this then your pizza buddy can start working on the next round while you’re tending the one on the fire.

Also, this is FANTASTIC party food: it’s really cheap to make, produces vast quantities of vittles, and is really, really fun. Plus, everyone is going to be standing around the grill oohing and ahhing anyway so you can easily put them to work rolling out dough and such.

Have fun!

A few Sundays back the weather warmed up suddenly (randomly) and Julie and Sister Amy decided that the perfect weather called for a picnic. Amy & Julie have a talent for great get-together ideas – and for cobbling together all-star menus at the last minute. This one was certainly no exception.

Amy just happened to already have a baguette and all the ingredients for an Asparagus Fritatta. Julie was the dispatched to the store for Wine, Goat Cheese and Olives.

It should be noted here that Sister Amy’s Fritatta made a shockingly good (and shockingly resilient) finger food. As it baked it formed a bit of a crust that gave it some backbone. Sliced into wedges it kept it’s structure well, didn’t fall apart all over the place, and it was really fun to eat. It was very easy to imagine a backyard full of people wandering around, chatting and sipping Champagne and nibbling on Frittata. Just an FYI for your next picnic or whatever…

The star of the menu, however, had to be the White Sangria that they just “threw together”. While at the store Julie had picked up a selection of Citrus Fruit and two gigantic bottles of an inexpensive White Wine. After experimenting a little with the ratios of fruit, ice, wine, and sugar they eventually struck gold. Their Sangria was light and refreshing with just a touch of sweetness.

All in all we wound up with a pretty sophisticated spread of appetizers and finger foods that was also pretty inexpensive (and just plain pretty). To top it all off, the White Wine Sangria was amazing and was really refreshing. We should probably give yet another shout out to Lyndie for putting the Sangria bug in our brains… Thanks Lyndie!

This is definitely going to be the summer of Sangria. They’re just too delicious, affordable, and easy to not make them all the time. Here’s what went into ours:
1 Lime, sliced
1 Blood Orange, sliced
1 large Meyers Lemon (or two small ones), sliced
2 Grapefruits, 1 sliced and 1 juiced
1 1.5 liter bottle of inexpensive White Wine (we spent about $8 a bottle for ours)
Ice Cubes
Sugar to taste

Toss all the fruit slices and juice into your most gigantic pitcher, pour in the Wine, top it up with ice, stir/mash it all together and sweeten it to taste with a little sugar.

We got a little fancier with the varieties of fruit than is really necessary. Regular old oranges and lemons would be great in this and might save you a buck or two.

It’s going to be fun to make a Red Sangria now (Lyndie’s specialty). Maybe we’ll try throwing some berries in it once their in season, who knows? We’ll be sure to post the results of any experimenting we do.

Cheers!

We’ve totally been on a Roasted Red Pepper and fresh Basil tear lately. Maybe we’re just impatient for Summer to finally arrive, we have been teased by a few warm, sunny days the past couple of weeks. Anyhoo, the peppers and basil have been going into pretty much everything these days including salads, dressings, and this sandwich.

C’mon, just look at it. Have you ever seen anything so scrumptious looking in your whole life? Us either… Read more »

As with most of the food ideas we have, this soup started out as something completely different. Originally, it was a recipe from Emeril for Garlic-roasted Asparagus that we were asked to make for Easter. That recipe was deceptively simple: toss the Asparagus with some crushed/minced Garlic, Olive Oil, and Salt & Pepper and roast it until golden brown – about 10 minutes or so. It was very similar in execution to our Rosemary Roasted Asparagus only Emeril finished it with a squeeze of fresh Lemon Juice.

We loved the freshness that the Lemon added to the Asparagus, and since we’d been wanting to make some Asparagus soup for quite a while we decided to borrow heavily from the Easter recipe ala Emeril.

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