La Chiesa II

Tonight, I went on the second of three culinary adventures put on by Arts on Grand and La Chiesa restaurant, both of Spencer.

It was,again, MARVELOUS. Not only is it good food, but I feel as though I'm learning so much. Tonight Chef Jeremy Neppl made a pork loin with an Italian bacon, but the name escapes me. It wasn't prosciutto, but something similar to that. He also made potato gnocchi (a pasta-like dumpling) and Bolognese sauce, a layered potato dish, green beans, and Brussels sprouts. They were all so good, and it was a lot of fun watching him cook. By the way, I know that at some point, I am going to make the gnocchi.

I should have been writing over the last few weeks all that I learned last time. But it's not very interesting reading about how to bread something without breading your fingers in the process. I learned a lot of neat tricks like that. I've also made chicken stock from scratch, blended olive oil and canola oil for some things in the kitchen, etc. They're small things, but significant if you spend any time in the kitchen.

Tonight Jeremy really surprised me. He told me that he read my blog... to be honest I was a bit embarrassed. I felt sort of like a food critic wannabe. I don't feel I know nearly enough about food for that role, but then I got thinking. I'm entirely comfortable with the role as literary critic. Actually, I thrive in that role. And like I tell my students, "critic" does not mean negative. It means to be analytical, interpretive. But then, even with that definition, I don't feel as though I know enough about food to really analyze it or interpret it, but I do feel as though I'm getting there. My palate is strengthening. Now, when I eat something I would have found acceptable in the past, I realize how bad it really is. Hell, take out pizza no longer cuts it for me. So now I find myself in a quandary. I have to cook more even if I'm tired or I don't want to cook in order to be satisfied.

I don't want to be a chef like Jeremy (the hours would kill me). I want to be a good cook and I want to know about all the different foods out there. Here in Northwest Iowa, we have so few opportunities to experience foods from different cultures. Sometimes our only option is to make them ourselves. So Jeremy, if you're reading this. I need to learn more about cooking. Can you point me in the right direction? By the way, the pictures I took of you with my cell phone tonight didn't turn out well, so I borrowed one from your website. And I told my boyfriend that we have to eat at your restaurant SOON. Thank you for everything, and I can't wait until next month.

"Whore's spaghetti"

I haven't been dieting well or even exercising well lately. Frequently, I've been coming home exhausted. I've been trying to at least avoid junk food and eating home made food even if that food isn't necessarily the most dietary of foods. It's been a rough couple of weeks because I've been teaching 4 sections of Composition II how to correctly use NoodleTools, a program that generates works cited pages. I've been doing this in a computer lab, which means I run around hour after hour during the day, but it isn't healthy running around. It's not aerobic. I rush from one side of a room to the other to stop a couple of minutes each place. It's taking its toll on me.

On Friday I spent the day with Mari and Brian, at a state conference between community colleges and the regents (the public state universities). The day was interesting, but long. The upside is that we went down to Newton for the meeting on Thursday. Thursday night we unwound with some drinks and soaking in the hot tub. I haven't been that warm and relaxed in MONTHS!!! I'm definitely going to have to get a whirlpool tub. Those drinks and that soaking was more rejuvenating than sleeping a week straight.

I was so refreshed and the day was so nice today that I took Joey for a walk on our fair-weather route. It was great! I'm hoping to take her again this afternoon.

So, anyway, right now, I'm more interested in exploring cooking more so than dieting. When I came home I found 3 new cooking magazines in the mail box. I had to try one of the recipes today: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca. Not knowing what puttanesca meant, I just did a quick search and learned from Wikipedia that it literally means "whore's style spaghetti." I've been called worse things.

I was intrigued by this recipe because it's made mostly of ingredients that can be kept in the pantry and not in the fridge. In other words, I can keep the ingredients on hand for a long time and when I'm tired or I don't want to go to the store, I can still whip up something that's good rather than going through a fast food drive-through. Also, it has a lot of ingredients with which I've had little to no experience, so I was challenged by it.

I don't know if this recipe is for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. This is a very oily spaghetti. It especially has a lot of olive oil. But there's also anchovies in it, so it also has omega-3 fish oil. The Kalamata olives and capers made it nice and tangy as well. So, if your idea of spaghetti is Chef Boyardee, or Kraft, this may not be for you.

The one ingredient I didn't use was grape tomatoes. I looked at them in the store and they just looked hard and woody. So, instead I used a big can of diced tomatoes. I drained them slightly, but when it called to add the additional spaghetti water, I didn't need to because there was plenty of sauce. Besides, I've read where canned tomatoes are even richer in the healthy antioxident, lycopene, than fresh tomatoes.

I found this recipe on page 91 of the March 2011 edition of Everyday Food.

Ingredients
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/5 cups grape tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed, dranied, and coarsely chopped.
3 anchovy fillets, minced
1/3 cup pitted Kalamata or other brined black olives, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves minced
1.5 cups tomato purée (from a 15-ounce can)
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 pound spaghetti

Preparation
1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Add grape tomatoes, capers, anchovies, olives, and garlic and cook until fragrant and tomatoes soften, about 5 minutes. Add tomato purée and season with salt and pepper; cook 2 minutes (sauce will be separated)
2. Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta water; drain pasta and add to sauce tossing to combine and adding enough pasta water to create a thin sauce that coats pasta. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve immediately. Serves 6.

Nutrition:
420 calories; 13 grams fat; 12 grams protein; 63 grams carbs; 4 grams fiber. Totals 11 points plus weight watcher's points.

Risotto

Although it's far from being dietary, I wanted to try to make risotto as I learned to make it Sunday night at La Chiesa, and at the same time, I wanted to make the broiled tilapia that I made a couple of weeks ago for Mari again. So, I went ahead and made the two together. The flavors went together very well. And although there aren't a lot of flavorings added to the risotto, it was very tasty.

I thought I knew how to make risotto until Sunday night. There I discovered that I was using the wrong kind of rice. You need to use Arborio, or similar rice in which the starches are on the outside of the grain rather than on the inside where most rice stores the starch. You also need to roast the rice before you add it to liquid. Although I don't have an official recipe, I can give you the general run down without specific amounts.

First, you need to heat a little olive oil and butter together in a skillet. Add finely chopped shallots and Arborio rice. Roast, stirring until the shallots begin to brown. I'd say about 5 minutes will do it. Then add stock about a cup at a time. I made chicken stock last night. That's something else I learned Sunday night. You need to make chicken or veal stock around. You just need to simmer the bones along with some carrots and onions. I also threw in some celery. You can freeze it and have it around as you need it. So, anyway, you keep adding the stock as it cooks away and is absorbed. Test the rice by tasting a grain once in awhile. Once it's done, add Parmesan and salt and pepper.

I really was impressed with how tasty the risotto was. But the tilapia was again really good. :)