Last Night’s Dinner

I spun out another one of our old standbys last night - crispy fillets of white fleshed fish (this time, black sea bass) over tomato-fennel broth. This is so easy to prepare, and I love how well it works in the heat of summer or on a chilly fall evening.

Wine Pairing: Our friends at Thirst recommended the 2005 Olivier Savary Chablis Vieilles Vignes to go with this dish, and we both agreed it was a really gorgeous wine - a beautiful gold color, very crisp and flinty, with an almost toasted-buttery aroma.

Fall has arrived, but there’s still plenty of late-summer produce to be had. In addition to the potatoes, kale and chard I picked up last weekend, I grabbed a few pounds of San Marzano tomatoes, some small eggplant and squash, and a couple of petite bell peppers. I don’t know what I was doing when the great ratatouille craze of 2007 struck, but somehow I missed it and this felt like my last chance to prepare it this season.

My plan was to make crepes and fill them with ratatouille and egg, so while I wanted some texture, I didn’t want an overly-chunky stew. I diced all of my vegetables (1/2 a red onion, one Japanese eggplant, one small green squash and two small bell peppers – one red and one orange) into 1/2 inch dice and set them aside. I heated a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and added the onion and some salt, allowing it to soften before adding a smashed garlic clove and the remaining vegetables. I added a bit more salt and let them cook about five minutes, and then I added a tablespoon of tomato paste, about 6 fresh San Marzanos, cored and chopped, a splash of white vermouth and a tablespoon or so of Herbes de Provence. I covered the pan and let it cook over medium-low heat for about an hour, stirring it occasionally.

I had put together my crepe batter (Alton Brown’s recipe, but with a pinch of Kosher salt and olive oil replacing the butter) before getting started on the ratatouille so it would be ready to go when the ratatouille was finished cooking. I ended up with 5 big crepes, which I set aside while I cooked a couple of eggs sunny side up in the same pan I had used for the crepes. When my eggs were cooked I laid a crepe on each of two dinner plates, spread some of the ratatouille over each, laid an egg on top and folded them up, serving them with some simply dressed red oak lettuce on the side and a nice, bright Sauvignon Blanc.

This was a light but satisfying meal, and though it takes a bit over an hour from start to finish, it’s easy enough for a weeknight dinner. It also lends itself well to adaptation – while we loved the richness of the runny egg yolk as it blended with the ratatouille, this would be just as good with a little feta or goat cheese instead.

I’m still suffering from this awful cold, so I kept things pretty simple last night. I started with about half a dozen fat garlic cloves and some fingerling potatoes halved lengthwise, placed them in a baking dish, covered them with olive oil and cooked them for 30 minutes in a 325 degree oven. After 30 minutes I added some small heirloom tomatoes, halved or quartered depending on their size, and laid two bluefish filets on top. I seasoned everything with Kosher salt and Herbes de Provence and let it roast at 400 degrees for another 20 minutes or so. When the fish was cooked through, I removed them to a small plate so I could pull out the potatoes, tomatoes and garlic using a slotted spoon and mound them on our plates. The bluefish went on top, and I sprinkled a bit of chopped flat-leaf parsley on top. Not the prettiest dish, but it was a tasty, satisfying, and most importantly easy weeknight meal.

“Snacking on sardines.”

It was an innocent little text message, sent out over Twitter by my husband, but it got me craving those savory little fish in the worst way. Though some of you probably can’t imagine sardines being a crave-worthy food, I’ve been completely smitten with them since my first taste (Prune restaurant, birthday dinner, sardines with Triscuits, mustard and cornichons – simply perfect). I knew we had a couple of tins in the pantry at home, and we had one bunch of baby fennel lingering in the crisper, so I scrapped my previous plan for dinner and put together one of my favorite fall-back pasta dishes – linguine with sardines, fennel and tomato, also known as “Linguine con Sarde.”

The last time I made this dish I was sort of going through the motions, so I did a few things differently this time. While my pasta water came to a boil, I sautéed garlic in olive oil, then added my sliced fennel bulb and a bit of salt and let it soften and begin to caramelize. I added a pinch of red chile flakes, one tin of sardines (minus the oil they were packed in), and a pint of tiny Super Sweet 100 tomatoes, gently stirring everything together. I added a hefty splash of white vermouth, the juice of one lemon, and a handful of chopped fennel fronds and let the sauce bubble away while I cooked a pound of linguine. When it was just short of al dente, I added about 3/4 of the pasta to the sauce along with a couple of small ladles of the starchy pasta water and gently tossed everything through. When the pasta had finished cooking in the sauce, I plated it, adding a sprinkling of toasted bread crumbs, a grating of lemon zest and a few more fennel fronds to each bowl.

While I think last night’s version of this dish could have used a touch more salt, Mike and I both agreed it was really good – the lemon was a great substitute for the sherry vinegar in my original dish, and the addition of the fennel fronds and zest at the end really brought all the flavors together. Think you don’t like sardines? This simple pasta dish just might make you change your mind.

While this dish helped me to use up three party leftovers (3/4 lb. chicken and red pepper sausage, a pint of cherry tomatoes and a pint of fresh mozzarella bocconcini), I wasn’t entirely pleased with the end result. I mixed these ingredients into a bread pudding, made with cubes of ciabatta and my basic custard recipe, but the end result was a little bland. I definitely under-salted the dish, and while the addition of a handful of shredded fresh basil leaves in the custard was nice, it needed a little more oomph – perhaps a stronger herb or some red chile flakes would have done the trick. Still, this wasn’t a bad meal – it was easy and filling, and it helped me clear some space in the fridge for other things.

I’m a little frantic these days. My pre-party panic is in full effect, and I’m beginning to do prep for several party dishes when I get home from work in the evenings in addition to getting dinner on the table. Last night was a pretty heavy prep night, as I worked on about six and a half pounds of duck breasts for the little pulled duck sandwiches I’m serving Saturday. Since the oven was on anyway, I figured I’d take advantage of that and packet cook some scallops.

I’m a big fan of packet cooking. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it makes for minimal cleanup – important considerations when you’re pressed for time and juggling other things. For these scallop packets, I set two squares of foil next to each other on a baking sheet, and mounded a combination of fresh corn, halved heirloom cherry tomatoes and sliced scallions on the center of each. I placed five plump little sea scallops on top of the veggies, seasoned them with kosher salt, and drizzled about a tablespoon of white vermouth and a little olive oil over each before sealing them up. The sealed packets went into a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes and when they were done, I placed each one into a shallow bowl to catch any stray juices, opened them up and sprinkled a bit of shredded basil on top. This meal couldn’t have been simpler, and it was bursting with late-summer goodness.

When I was in my twenties and just beginning to experiment with different cuisines, I cooked enough paella that I received an authentic (and pricey) paella pan as a gift from a beau. I still own that pan, but it has been parked on top of the refrigerator for the entire three years Mike and I have lived in our apartment – which should tell you how many paellas I’ve cooked in that time. It’s a dish that I love, but it fell off my radar until recently, when Mark Bittman’s Minimalist Tomato Paella recipe appeared in the Times. I wasn’t the only one seduced by visions of sweet roasted tomatoes, smoky, earthy seasonings, tender rice and that gorgeous crust – in fact, Luisa’s mouthwatering photos practically haunted me. I needed to make this dish.

Since most of our useable kitchen space is covered with platters and such for our party this weekend I didn’t end up dusting off my old paella pan, but our trusty cast iron skillet worked just fine. I followed Bittman’s recipe, using a mixture of white vermouth (1/2 cup) and water (3 cups) for the liquid component, and sprinkling a bit of fresh thyme over the top instead of chopped parsley (it was too dark out by the time I got home to grab parsley from the garden), and let me tell you, this was phenomenal. The depth of flavor in this dish, the textures of the rice and of the roasted tomatoes just floored me, and the fact that it came together so quickly and easily made it that much better. If you’ve been thinking about making this dish and you haven’t yet, do it.

Everybody’s got one – the meal you could put together in your sleep, the dish you fall back on when you’re short on time, energy and inspiration. Between the crazy work schedules Mike and I have had of late, and the fact that I’m spending much of my remaining time putting the finishing touches on (i.e. obsessing and stressing over) plans for our upcoming cocktail party, thinking of what to make for dinner is becoming a bit of a challenge.

I was completely at a loss yesterday as to what to cook, so I pulled out my no-brainer: skinless, boneless chicken breasts simmered in homemade tomato sauce spiked with several fresh basil leaves, topped with melty fresh mozzarella and served with a sautéed green on the side (in this case, broccoli rabe with garlic and chile flakes). It may not be the prettiest meal to look at, but this quick, easy and satisfying weeknight supper totally hit the spot.

This meal was inspired by a couple of different dishes: the first, a lovely house-made ravioli with a light, fresh tomato sauce we had at Chez Lola recently, and the second a garden tomato “elixir” prepared by Lidia Bastianich on one of her television shows. Since we had a few heirloom tomatoes that were near-overripe, I liked the idea of preparing them as Lidia did her elixir and using that to sauce some (almost) homemade ravioli.

Lola’s ravioli was stuffed with shredded duck, and while it was absolutely delicious, after all the meat we ate this weekend I wanted to prepare a meatless version. I combined about 8 oz. each of sheep’s milk ricotta and soft fresh goat cheese (Consider Bardwell’s yummy Mettowee), blended in an egg, a pinch of salt and some chopped opal basil from our garden, and that was our filling.

I decided to go for really big ravioli (which I guess are technically raviolo). I laid out a sheet of pasta on a floured board and made three little mounds of the cheese filling, a couple of tablespoons each, then brushed water around the edges, laid another sheet of pasta on top, pressed and sealed. I cut the pasta into three squares using a pizza cutter, set them aside on a floured platter, and repeated the process with my remaining pasta and filling. (Full disclosure: I did not make the pasta for this. When we have more than a 2 foot by 2 foot square of counter space to work with, I’ll happily get out the old pasta machine and make it from scratch again. For now, store-bought will do the trick.)

While I got a big pot of water boiling to cook the pasta, I made the sauce. I cored and roughly chopped three really ripe heirloom tomatoes and set them in a sieve over a bowl, squeezing and pressing them to extract their juices. I added a pinch of salt and several opal basil leaves and let it sit while I sautéed a few smashed Rocambole garlic cloves in olive oil. I added the tomato elixir and warmed it just briefly while the pasta cooked. I spooned a little of the sauce onto our plates, and as each of the raviolo finished cooking, I gave them a quick dunk in the pan of sauce before plating them, grating a little Pecorino Romano on top.

The raviolo were a bit unwieldy, but the flavor of both sauce and filling was excellent, and we somehow managed to polish off the entire batch. I plan to make this again while heirloom tomatoes are still in season, but I’ll likely downsize our pasta pillows - this is a case where bigger isn’t necessarily better.

This is about as simple as it gets - I rubbed a couple of tuna steaks down with a mixture of chopped fresh garlic and Herbes de Provence, seasoned them with salt and poured over a healthy amount of olive oil, then grilled them over hardwood for about five minutes per side. I served them with a dollop of homemade lemon pesto (sans cheese) and a salad of arugula, radish, fresh corn and tomatoes. Light, bright and delicious - this was everything I want in a late summer supper.