The Yum Yum Factor

Who doesn't love pasta with nice, little clams? Crazy people, that's who. Although I love a straight up vongole with nothing but olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, wine and clams, sometimes I want to kick things up a bit. I was craving a good pasta with clams but I was also craving roasted fennel- what to do? When I thought about it,  it made sense to just throw some fennel in there. Once I got used to the idea of adding fennel, it made it feel less taboo to add some diced tomato as well. At this rate, I will be adding meatballs and smoked trout the next time. Pasta with clams and roasted fennel serves 4 1 head fennel, quartered olive oil kosher salt 400g dried spaghetti 1/4 cup olive oil 1 bls butter 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced pinch chili flakes salt and pepper 1kg or 2 lbs of small clams 1/4 cup white wine 1 small tomato, diced handful fresh italian parsley, chopped roasted fennel, sliced fennel fronds, chopped to roast the fennel ahead of...

I love chimichurri and could probably be persuaded to eat it on just about anything. I like to say that I would eat dog poop if you used enough chimichurri but that is kind of gross so I probably shouldn't write that here. Oh and please don't scold me because my chimichurri isn't "authentic" because it is delicious. I have had "authentic" chimichurri that has been made a bazillion different ways and each one was presented to me as "the" correct recipe. I have been told that it can never have cilantro, it must have thyme, it must have oregano, it can't have oregano, it must have lemon and it can't have lemon and definitely can't have cilantro. This is the way I make it and I am always open to trying variations til the cows come home so please share your own recipes with me to try, just don't scold me, okay? Deal? Deal. It was going to be hot and sunny and so a bbq was in order. I was thinking of doing thai grilled chic...

Do you think that Oprah loves these tiny, crustless tea sandwiches too or do you think she likes her tea sandwiches battered and fried? Now that I think about it, a chicken fried tea sandwich might be a pretty fabulous thing, no? Anyway, I spent hours looking at tea party treats for our school's annual Mother's Tea and just couldn't decide on what sandwich to make. I LOVE a good egg salad but I was pretty sure that someone else made some because someone always makes egg salad. I wanted to keep things pretty mild, nothing too crazy so I finally settled on these Oprah sammys and then, because it didn't feel like enough, I made some cheese straws too. My southern friends make me feel like I have not lived until I have eaten some tangy, mildly spicy cheese straws and wouldn't dream of hosting a tea party without them so I didn't want to feel like a shoddy hostess (even though I wasn't actually the hostess anyway). I used the recipe from smitten kitchen bec...

This is something we eat a lot during the summer months when tomatoes are at their peak. It seems like such a shame to cook them for those few precious weeks that we have local tomatoes that are succulent and perfect. Nothing is better than a perfectly ripe tomato from your own garden, sliced up with nothing but a bit of sea salt and a grind of black pepper. mmmmm These tomatoes that I used for these weren't local but they were really juicy and sweet and delicious and so instead of throwing them into another salad, I made this pasta. The first time I ever had this was on my first day in Milan about a million years ago. I was going to work with my friend, John, who had been living there for months already so he picked me up from the airport and brought me back to his apartment, where I would be staying for a while so that I could shower and freshen up and maybe nap a bit before we went to explore the neighbourhood. He mixed the tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, basil and a b...

MMMMMM mussels. They are so cheap, so easy and so delicious that anyone who enjoys eating them but never makes them is insane. You can make a giant pot of mussels, cut up a loaf of some kind of good, crusty bread, maybe make a salad and you have dinner on the table in ten minutes for under $10. Sometimes it's fun to get fancy pants and do all sorts of exotic thai lemongrass or Indian spiced mussels to be sure, but for The Kid, it's always classic,  straight up white wine, garlic and buttery tomatoes. Bottom line is that there is no excuse to not make them so don't be a crazy person. Go and buy yourself a bag of mussels and get cracking. Mussels in White Wine serves 2 as a main course or 3 or 4 as an appetizer 2 lb mussels 3 tbls butter 3 shallots, chopped 2 cloves garlic, chopped pinch chili flakes 2 large plum tomatoes, chopped 1/2 cup white wine 1 cup chopped italian parsley 1/2 cup chopped basil Cook the onion, chili flake  and garlic in the b...

Dinner. It just doesn't ever go away. Every day you have to eat something and you have feed that kid something for supper. When you are feeding people on a daily basis, it can't all be risotto and homemade pasta because on most week nights, you are going to need dishes that are delicious, quick, nutritious and easy to throw together in a hour. I had some skinless, bone in chicken breasts that had to get used today and a bit of buttermilk so I settled on some sort of buttermilk marinated chicken. Doesn't take a brain surgeon to come to that conclusion, does it? From that point, it's all about what sort of spices and other flavourings you add to the buttermilk that separate the men from the boys. Regardless, I just wanted to make sure I was on the right track with my plans so when I found this really basic recipe on TLC and it didn't involve 19 kids and counting or american gypsy's, I knew I had found a good, solid base to work from. I didn't follow t...

My guys love meatloaf and they are really open to all the different kinds of meatloaf I make. We have done a turkey meatloaf that had all the flavours of thanksgiving dinner that was a huge hit. Then there is The Kid's very favourite meatloaf  that has lots of bbq sauce that I change up a little bit every time I make it but as long as there is bbq sauce in there, he is always happy. I make meatloaf with ground chicken, turkey, beef, veal, pork and combinations of all of those meats.  For this particular dinner, I had the idea to make an italian meatloaf covered in pancetta and stuffed with provolone and went to the grocery store for my beef/pork/veal only to find they were out of ground pork. I was going to buy pork chops and grind it up myself when I spied the italian sausage and thought "why not?" Shack uses italian sausages in his meat sauce, sometimes mixing it with ground beef, sometimes on it's own. In theory, it should work really well and add a ton o...