Spring Salad with Mint Pesto

Temperatures here in New Jersey have already reached 90 degrees, and that makes me crave salads. I recently ate something similar to this at Thompson Italian in Alexandria, Va., recommended by my friend Domenica Marchetti, who lives there. I split it with my husband as an appetizer, but could easily have eaten it all myself. I liked it so much, I had to try to recreate it when I got home. It's not exactly like the restaurant's version, but it's close enough, and so delicious and refreshing. Start by making the mint pesto. You need a heaping cup of well-packed mint leaves. That will give you more than you'll need for this recipe, unless you're serving more than two people. In that case, just double everything in the recipe except the pesto ingredients. The pesto recipe will give you plenty for four servings, maybe even for six, depending on how generous you are in applying to the salad. Freeze the leftover pesto, which would be terrific with lamb or fish.

Next you'll need some fresh snap peas. I was lucky enough to get these from my friend Karla, who invited me to pick these beauties from her garden, along with some truly delicious strawberries and lettuces. I took some of her tarragon too, for another use.

Just trim off the hard end of the snap peas, and any stringy bit that comes with it. After trimming them, I left these whole for the salad.

You'll need asparagus too, which I always peel to avoid the tough outer layer. Cut them into pieces about 2- 2 1/2 inches long, then cook the snap peas and asparagus in boiling water for only 3 to 4 minutes. I didn't want them to be raw, but I didn't want them soft and limp either, so cook them just a short bit, remove from the boiling water and drop them immediately into ice water to stop the cooking, then drain and pat dry. They'll still have a slight crunch to them.

The restaurant menu said the dish contained preserved lemons, and I didn't have any more homemade from my own lemon tree, but I found some at my local supermarket, McCaffrey's, which seems to carry almost everything I want. If you can't find preserved lemons, I would suggest washing a fresh lemon, cutting it into small pieces then chopping roughly it in a food processor with a little salt and water before adding to this recipe.

Here's what one preserved lemon looks like straight from the jar. I cut it in small pieces before adding it to the food processor to make the pesto.

And here's what the pesto looks like after everything is all blended. Give it a taste to decide whether it needs more salt. Unlike a lot of pestos, this one doesn't use any parmesan cheese. There's already feta in the dish, so parmesan would only compete with it. Even without cheese, the pesto was so delicious, I found it hard to resist digging in with a spoon (ok, so maybe I dipped a finger in -- quality control and all that.).

Add a good dollop of the pesto - maybe 3 or 4 tablespoons - to a bowl with the cooked (and cooled) asparagus, snap peas, toasted walnuts (again cooled) and feta. Mix everything well with a spoon.


Serve on a plate surrounded by radicchio or salad greens of your choice. I dressed the radicchio first with a simple addition of salt and pepper, olive oil and vinegar, then placed the green salad in the center.

I've made this salad twice in the last two days, and decorated it the first time with some yellow calendula leaves (also from Karla's garden). If you've got nasturtiums blooming, they'd be lovely too -- totally optional, but it does add a nice pop of color to the mostly green salad.

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Spring Salad with Mint Pesto

(makes two servings but extra pesto for another meal or the freezer)

For the Mint Pesto

1 cup packed mint leaves

1/2 cup toasted walnuts

1 small clove garlic

1 of a preserved lemon 

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons water

salt, pepper to taste

Put everything in a food processor and blend, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally. Taste to see if it needs more lemon or salt and pepper. 

Salad Ingredients:

6 or 8 spears of thicker asparagus, peeled and sliced at an angle about 2 inches-3 inches long each.

snap peas trimmed and in the shell (I used about a dozen for this recipe)

1/4 cup (about 2-3 ounces) feta cheese, diced

1/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped roughly

the pesto from above recipe

lettuce for the base, plus vinegar and oil to drizzle on the lettuce

calendula petals (or nasturtium flowers or other edible flowers) - optional

Procedure:

Make the mint pesto and set aside. Cook the asparagus pieces and the snap peas in boiling water for only about four minutes. You don't want the vegetables to be mushy, they should have a slight bite to them. Remove the vegetables with a "spider" and drop immediately into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking, then pat dry to eliminate any water that still clings.

To a bowl, add the barely cooked vegetables, the feta cheese, the walnuts and some of the pesto. (The above recipes makes more pesto than you'll need for this recipe, but you can freeze the leftover. Mint pesto is delicious with fish, lamb or even pasta.) Mix everything together. Place some lettuce leaves on a plate and season them with salt and pepper, then drizzle a little olive oil and vinegar over the leaves. Arrange the asparagus, peas and feta salad over the lettuce leaves and scatter the edible flowers on top.

Shrimp Salad Sliders

The unofficial start of summer -- Memorial Day -- is almost here and with it comes weekends of barbecues and picnics with family and friends. If you're looking for something a little different from the traditional hamburgers and grilled foods, try these shrimp salad sliders. You can mix them ahead of time, then portion onto buttered and toasted buns when you're ready to serve. I was inspired to try these after seeing Philly Food Girl make them on her Instagram page. She doesn't give quantities, so I had to come up with the recipe for you. You cook the shrimp first, let them cool, then mix all the ingredients together.  

Serve on toasted potato rolls (if you can't find potato rolls, regular rolls will do just fine.)

Top with some shredded celery leaves for freshness and extra texture. 

It's hard to eat just one, so make sure you're prepared with extras. We figured on two per person.

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Shrimp Salad Sliders

(Makes enough for four sliders)

To cook the shrimp:

3/4 lb. shrimp, deveined, cooked and cooled

1/2 lemon, squeezed and dropped whole into the boiling water

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

Put some water to a boil in a medium pot -- enough to cover the shrimp. Add the lemon juice, the lemon, salt and Old Bay seasoning to the pot. Let it come to a rapid boil, then add the shrimp. Cook for five minutes or less, until just cooked through. Drain, cool and chop into coarse pieces.

For the dressing:

3/4 cup minced celery, plus celery leaves

juice of 1/2 of a lemon plus the grated rind of 1/2 lemon

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

salt, pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon celery salt

buttered and grilled small potato rolls, if they're available where you live

Mix all the dressing ingredients together well, keeping aside some of the chopped celery leaves. Then add the cooled and chopped shrimp. Place in refrigerator and let flavors blend for at least a half hour before serving on buttered, grilled potato rolls, if you can find them where you live. Otherwise, use  buttered and grilled hot dog rolls.

Marcella Hazan's Lasagne Verdi

 

I know that this recipe might never be made by the majority of readers, but if you are up for a bit of a challenge, you will be rewarded with one of the most delicate, delicious and dazzling pastas ever to pass your lips and make its way to your stomach. Every bite is a sublime ode to Marcella Hazan, the doyenne of Italian cuisine, who published this recipe in "The Classic Italian Cookbook." It all starts with her ragù Bolognese, which I've made in the past and served with rigatoni or over polenta. It's a long-simmering ragù that confounds what most Americans think of as spaghetti sauce since it contains no garlic, no basil, no oregano, no sausage. What it does have is milk (yes milk), white wine, nutmeg, tomatoes, olive oil, butter, onion, celery, carrots and ground meat of course. I posted the recipe before, with step-by-step photos here. But the recipe is also printed below. You can't ask for a tastier foundation for the lasagne. 

You also can't make lasagne verdi without green pasta, so bring out your pasta machine, or put some elbow grease into rolling the pasta by hand. Yes, you can use store-bought pasta sheets, but I doubt you'll find green ones, and even if you do, there is nothing comparable to the silky toothiness of home-made lasagne noodles. Once you've tasted them, you'll see it's a game changer. To make the recipe less onerous, I made the ragù and pasta dough one day and refrigerated them, then rolled out the dough and assembled everything the next day.



You start out by spreading a little of the ragù in the pan, and then placing a layer of the pasta dough (which has been boiled for about 30 seconds) over the ragù. If necessary, cut the pasta strips to fit your pan.

Add more ragù, some of the béchamel sauce (sorry I didn't photograph making it), and spread it over the dough. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese (not pictured here).


Continue this procedure (pasta, ragù, béchamel, parmesan) until you run out of dough, ragù or béchamel (I was able to get six layers of pasta in the pan.)

Finish with a layer of pasta, béchamel, more parmesan cheese and a few pats of butter.

What emerges from the oven is what I can only describe as divine. And just in case I don't end up inside the Pearly Gates in my next life, I'm going to request this as part of my last meal on earth. It really doesn't get better than this.

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Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Ragù

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons chopped yellow onion

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 tablespoons butter

• 2 tablespoons chopped celery

• 2 tablespoons chopped carrot

• 3/4 pound ground lean beef (I used a combination of beef, veal and pork and it was slightly over one pound)

• salt

• 1 cup dry white wine

• 1/2 cup whole milk

• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

• 2 cups canned whole tomatoes, chopped, with their juice (I used a 28-ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes from Italy)

Instructions

1. In a Dutch oven or large heavy pot, add the onion with the oil and butter and saute briefly over medium heat until translucent.

2. Add the celery and carrot and cook for 2 minutes.

3. Add the ground meat, crumbling it in the pot with a fork.

4. Add 1 teaspoon salt, stir, and cook only until the meat has lost its red, raw color.

5. Add the wine, turn the heat up to medium high, and cook, stirring occasionally, until all the wine has evaporated.

6. Turn the heat down to medium, add the milk and the nutmeg, and cook until the milk has evaporated. This may take a while.

7. Stir frequently.

8. When the milk has evaporated, add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly.

9. When the tomatoes have started to bubble, turn the heat down until the sauce cooks at the laziest simmer, just an occasional bubble.

10. Cook, uncovered, for a minimum of 3 1/2 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally.

For the spinach pasta:

1/2 ten-ounce package frozen leaf spinach, thawed, or 1/2 pound fresh spinach  (I misread the ingredients and used an entire 12-ounce bag of frozen spinach which worked out fine after I added more flour)

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour (because I goofed on adding more spinach than called for, I needed to add more flour to get the right consistency) 

If using frozen spinach, cook it with 1/4 tsp. salt in a covered pan over medium heat for 5 minutes. Drain and let cool. If using fresh spinach, try to choose young, tender spinach. Remove all stems and discard any leaves that aren't perfectly green and crisp. Wash in a basin of cold water, changing the water several times until it shows no traces of soil. Cook with 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a covered pan over medium heat with just the water that clings to the leaves. Cook until tender, 15 minutes or more, then drain and allow to cool. 

Squeeze the cook spinach with your hands as dry as you can, then chop it very fine. (I put it in a food processor to chop it).

You can make the pasta the traditional way by putting flour on a work surface, making a well in the center and lightly beating the eggs and spinach in the well, gradually adding the flour, but I placed the flour and eggs into the processor and mixed it all together in the machine until it gathered itself into a ball. I removed it from the food processor and added more flour by hand, kneading it until smooth. At this point, I wrapped it in plastic wrap and kept it in the refrigerator overnight. But you can let it rest for about 20 minutes and then proceed with the rest of the recipe.

For The Béchamel Sauce:

3 cups milk

6 tablespoons butter

4 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt 

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add in the flour, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Let the flour and butter bubble for 2 minutes without ceasing to stir. Do not let the flour become colored.

Add the milk slowly over low heat, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring constantly with a whisk until it starts to thicken. Remove from heat and add the salt. It will thicken as it cools and will form a "skin," so it's best to make it right before you use it. If you have to reheat it, stir it vigorously over low heat and add more milk if necessary.

Other Ingredients:

2/3 cup parmesan cheese (I used about a cup)

2 tablespoons butter

Directions for Assembly:

Prepare the meat sauce.

Make the pasta:

Roll out sheets of pasta until not quite paper thin.

Boil the sheets in salted water for 30 seconds only and lay out to drain on clean dish cloths. (I boiled one sheet at a time to make it easier to manage)

Make the béchamel sauce.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Smear the bottom of a lasagna pan with a bit of the meat sauce. Place a layer of the pasta over the sauce, cutting and overlapping strips slightly if necessary. Spread enough sauce on the pasta to dot it with meat, then spread bechamel over the meat sauce. sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese. Continue with more layers of pasta, ragù, béchamel and parmesan, ending with a layer of pasta. Coat the top layer with some béchamel, sprinkle with cheese and dot lightly with butter.

Bake on the uppermost rack of the oven for 10-15 minutes, until a light, golden crust forms on top. (If you made it ahead of time and refrigerated it, remove from refrigerator about 1 - 1/2 hour before baking to bring it to room temperature. I did that and still kept it in for about 25 minutes to make sure it was cooked through and had that golden crust and it was perfect)

Allow lasagne to settle 5-10 minutes before serving.

Whipped Feta, Ricotta and Spicy Honey

 

Here's a quick, easy and delicious appetizer recipe I found on Chef Mimi's Blog. It was perfect this week since I found myself with a small amount of feta and ricotta in the fridge and my Italian chit-chat group was on its way to my house. The whole thing takes ten minutes to make, start to finish. I didn't have the sour cream called for in the recipe but used cream cheese instead, since that's what I had on hand. I also didn't follow the exact quantities of feta and ricotta either, since I had less feta and more ricotta than the recipe called for. It doesn't really matter though, whether you have more or less of one or the other. It all works out as the perfect foil for the spicy honey. I served only with crackers, but you could also serve with some crunchy vegetables too.

Whipped Feta, Ricotta and Spicy Honey

From Chef Mimi Blog

Whipped feta:
7 ounces feta, room temperature (I had half than this)
3.5 ounces ricotta, room temperature (I had double this amount)
1.7 ounces sour cream, room temperature (I used cream cheese)

salt and black pepper

Spicy honey:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
5 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon crushed red chili flakes, more for serving
salt and black pepper

Feta, ricotta and sour cream should be at room temperature. Add feta, ricotta and sour cream (or cream cheese) to a food processor. Season with salt and pepper. Blend on high until smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed.

In a saucepan, heat olive oil. Add garlic, sauté on very low heat until soft. Turn off the heat. Stir in honey, lemon juice and chili flakes. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve the whipped feta drizzled with spicy honey.

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Banana Cake with Browned Butter Frosting

Who among us hasn't watched a few bananas discolor on the kitchen counter and turn dark brown before we could eat them? It happens to me all the time and I usually throw the bananas in the freezer whole, wrapped up a plastic bag. When I want to bake with them, I just thaw them and peel them. I typically use the nearly rotted bananas for banana "bread" or smoothies, but decided yesterday to make a banana cake recipe I found online, at a website called Grumpy's Honey Bunch. I got off to a rough start, though, as I was about to place the pan in the oven. I was using a spatula to wipe the bowl, and a bit got on my hands, which I licked. I realized immediately that the batter had no sweetness, because I had forgotten to add the sugar. I dumped the mixture back into a bowl, added the sugar, buttered another pan, and prayed that it would all turn out alright.

It emerged from the oven looking just fine, so I proceeded to make the frosting. If you prefer just a dusting of powdered sugar, that works too. 

But this browned butter frosting with maple syrup is so delicious, I highly recommend you make it. I topped it with some candied pecans I had made last week, but just toasted pecans would be fine too.

The earlier snafu didn't seem to affect the taste or texture of the cake. It was so tender and delicious, I could have eaten half of the pan. The bulk of this went to a neighbor, but I kept a few pieces for my dessert-loving husband (and me too). It serves a lot of people, so make sure you've got a crowd coming. It's sure to be a hit.

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Banana Cake with Brown Butter Frosting

recipe from Honey Bee's Kitchen (with a couple of minor adjustments)

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs room temperature
• 2¼ cups flour
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar (the original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups, but you don't need that much. I might even reduce it to 1 cup next time)
• ½ tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3 medium bananas , mashed
• ¾ cup buttermilk (I almost never have it on hand, so I just squeeze some lemon into regular milk and wait for ten minutes or so for it to "curdle."
  
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ½ cup unsalted butter melted

For the Browned Butter Maple Frosting

• 2½ cups powdered sugar
• 4 tablespoon butter browned
• 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
• 2½ tablespoon half and half (I used milk)

Instructions:

For the Cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
3. In a medium bowl, mash the bananas. Add the melted butter, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk to the mashed bananas.
4. Pour the wet ingredients over the flour mixture and mix with a hand mixer on medium speed until well blended.
5. Pour in a 9x13 glass baking pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack to cool completely.

For The Frosting

1. In a small saucepan over medium high heat, cook the butter until bubbly and the solids begin to brown.
2. Pour the melted butter over 2 cups of confectioners' sugar. Add the maple syrup and the 2 tablespoons half and half (or milk).
3. Adjust with remaining sugar and half and half (or milk) as needed to make frosting of a spreadable consistency.
4. Frost the cooled cake and garnish with toasted whole pecans (if using - I used candied pecans). 

Pistachio Cannoli Cake

If you love cannoli, this cake should be on your table, with its luscious filling of ricotta, flavored with chocolate and candied orange peel. The cake batter contains pistachios, and it's also sprinkled with them along the sides. In short, it's a show-stopper of a cake that tastes divine too. It would perfect for company, especially with Easter not far off. 

Not surprisingly, the recipe comes from domestic goddess Martha Stewart. However, after my first attempt that turned out less than perfect, I made a few tweaks. The cake didn't rise well enough on the first try, and I attributed that to a couple of things: I didn't have all the ingredients at room temperature, and I didn't alternate mixing the dry and wet ingredients. I had to try a second time incorporating the changes, and as a consequence, the cake rose higher and was lighter in texture. 

I also deleted the heavy cream from the filling the second time around. Without it, it's much more like a cannoli filling, with the chocolate bits and candied orange peel. But there wasn't enough to make a substantial amount to fill all the layers, so I doubled the amount of ricotta. 

As I do with many recipes containing ricotta, I drained it overnight to eliminate excess water. Look how much came out:

Cut the two layers into four, then stack them together, brush the edges with melted chocolate, then pat the chocolate edges with minced pistachios. Then separate each layer and stack them on individual sheets of waxed paper while you mix the filling.

Spread the filling on each layer, then top with a dusting of powdered sugar on top.

If you have extra candied orange peel, decorate the top with it (find my recipe here for making it) or with more chopped pistachios.                                                                

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Martha Stewart's Pistachio Cannoli Cake (my changes in italics)

• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans

• 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for pans

• ½ cup plus 3 tablespoons shelled unsalted pistachios (3 ½ ounces) (Use more because the side won't be covered properly otherwise)

• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

• ¼ teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• ¼ teaspoon orange-flower water (optional) (I used 1 teaspoon)

• 2 large eggs plus 2 large yolks, room temperature

• 1 cup sour cream, room temperature

Filling

• 2 ¾ cups fresh ricotta (about 1 ½ pounds) (I used 4 cups)

• ¾ cup heavy cream (I omitted this - not needed)

• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ¾ cup confectioners' sugar, plus more for serving (I used 1 1/4 cups)

• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (¾ cup), plus 2 ½ ounces more, melted (½ cup) (I would use mini chocolate chips to keep the ricotta whiter-looking since the shards I chopped turned the ricotta beige)

• 4 ounces candied orange peel, cut into a ¼-inch dice (I used more)

• Preheat oven and prep cake pans:

1. Cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 8-by-2-inch round cake pans. Line pans with parchment; butter parchment. Dust with flour, tapping out excess.

2. Grind pistachios; reserve some and process rest with dry ingredients:

3. In a food processor, finely grind pistachios. Remove and reserve 1/4 cup ground pistachios, then add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to processor and pulse to combine.

4. Beat butter; add yolks one at a time:

5. Beat butter with granulated sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add orange-flower water; beat to combine. Beat in eggs and yolks, one at a time, thoroughly combining after each addition and scraping down bowl as needed.

6. Add pistachio mixture and sour cream:

7. Add pistachio mixture to egg mixture in three batches, alternating with sour cream and beginning and ending with pistachio mixture.

8. Divide batter between pans and bake:

9. Divide batter evenly between cake pans; smooth tops with an offset spatula. Bake, rotating pans once, until tops spring back when lightly touched, 30 to 35 minutes.

10. Cool cakes, then refrigerate:

11. Transfer pans to a wire rack; let cool 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack; remove parchment and let cool 1 hour. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to overnight.

12. Make filling:

13. Meanwhile, combine ricotta and cream in bowl of food processor; process until smooth. Add salt, vanilla, cinnamon, and confectioners' sugar; process to combine. Transfer mixture to a bowl and stir in chopped chocolate and orange peel. Refrigerate in an airtight container at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

14. Cut cake to create layers; stack and brush with melted chocolate and pistachios:

15. Cut each cake horizontally into 2 layers. Stack on a cardboard cake round or a plate; brush edges with melted chocolate, then pat some of reserved ground pistachios onto chocolate. Separate, then refrigerate in a single layer until set, 10 minutes.

16. Assemble cake:

17. Place one cake layer on a cake stand, bottom-side down; spread 1 1/2 cups filling evenly over top, then place second layer on top. Repeat with remaining filling and cakes, finishing with a cake layer, bottom-side up. Refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to overnight. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar and remaining reserved ground pistachios for serving.

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