Tag Archives: rosemary

Saturday Night Protein

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Not quite Saturday Night Fever, but what can I say. This is a picto-graphic of dinner for 2 at our house on Saturday night. Pick your protein and shared sides:

  • My Pescatarian’s delight dinner: Roasted Arctic Char with Fresh Herbs. I marinated the Arctic Char in a mustard-y vinagrette and then roasted in the oven for about 12 minutes.

Roasted Arctic Char with Fresh Herbs

  • Hubs’s dinner – for the meat-lovers. I think it’s a strip steak – Hubs?

Pan-seared Steak with Red-wine Reduction

  • Served with Smashed WSF Fingerling Potatoes with Rosemary and Garlic – delightful. Must convince Hubs to guest blog and share this recipe.

Smashed Fingerling Potatoes with Rosemary and Garlic

  • And a salad of hyper-local curly endive from our very own veggie patch to cleanse the palate. Dressed with same vinaigrette used to marinate the Arctic Char

Curly Endive Salad

  • Paired with a red Zinfandel we picked up on a trip to Sonoma a few years ago from DaVero, renowned for their delicious olive oils.

2008 DaVero Zinfandel

Yum.

Nanny’s Dish

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My Italian-American (Calabrese) grandmother (we called her nanny) was a lousy cook. I know, it’s counter to what everyone wants to believe about her type but she made greasy tomato sauce, tough pork chops and tasteless baccala. But she made one delicious, memorable favorite dish: peppers and onions, usually with sausage or potatoes. I updated it with Wolfe Spring Farm bell peppers, fingerling potatoes, and some regular old supermarket onions. And since it’s August and I’m doin’ everything on the grille in my new dumptique enameled metal pan……… Slice everything up as shown, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, throw in some fresh oregano, rosemary and whatever else you have around, thyme would be nice, and then put on the grille on high heat. Toss every so often until looks done. This could easily be done on the stovetop or in the oven, OMG……..memories……. light the corners of my mind……..greasy oily-tasting memories……of the way we were…..

Beautiful ingredients!

Ready to go……

Maybe after 30 minutes on high heat

EAT! You’re so skinny!!

Grilled Fish at Altitude: Branzino in Montagna

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Ever grilled a whole fish? Easier than you think if you have a trusty fishmonger and a hot fire. I’m visiting dear friend Alyce Henness in the Italian Alps. Alyce and her snowboarding superstar husband Luca live in a cozy, Alpine-style home with all the mod cons in the town of La Salle, which is in the region of the Valle d’Aosta. Imagine clean mountain air, soft green grass, a river roaring past and Mont Blanc in the background. One could do worse…
Not eating meat is a rarity in Italy, but actually extremely easy to do with all the readily available fresh produce, pasta and fish. Even here in the mountains, Alyce picked up a beautiful whole branzino for me at the local supermarket.

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Branzino is Italian for sea bass, and let me tell you, we are hours from the sea and this guy looks like he blew his last bubbles this morning. The branzino weighed in at a hefty pound an a quarter and thankfully Alyce had the foresight to ask the fishmonger to clean it for us. Like I said, need to have a good fishmonger, because no one wants to scale a fish in the kitchen. I stuffed the fish with sliced lemon, branches of rosemary, and some sliced garlic. Drizzled it with olive oil and some salt and pepper and it was ready to go.

Luca grilled it to perfection on the charcoal grill in their garden – about 6 or 7 minutes per side and voila.

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I removed the flesh from the bones and placed the delicate white meat on a clean plate, drizzled it with a little more olive oil, squirt of lemon and some salt and pepper. Cooked perfectly. Delicious – even Alyce and Luca, who were happily eating grilled fillet, agreed. Bravo, Luca!

And to accompany our meal, Alyce prepared yummy baked zucchini boats topped with melted parmiggiano. The recipe was passed along from Alyce’s mom Susan, in Erie, PA. Maybe Alyce could share her timely recipe as we are all overloaded with zucchini at this time of year…and to drink, we had a local, light and refreshing Muller-Thurgau with our meal.

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And as if that weren’t enough, hostess extraordinaire Alyce served homemade strawberry ice cream, made with tiny pieces of local fragole. I couldn’t get a picture because my 2 scoops were consumed too fast. Whoops.
Thank you again, Alyce and Luca!

Grilled Branzino