As I was doing a bit or organizing in my pantry today I thought of Gollum asking Bilbo, “what’s it gots in it’s pocketses”? Well many a thing can hide in my pantry for unknown lengths of time so I decided to pick a hidden item to do a new recipe with. Some times I like to go to the grocery store just to find something fun to cook, but today it was going to come from the pantry. What I found that I thought needed to come out and play was a tiny bit of whole wheat shell pasta that wouldn’t amount to an entree, but could be my lunch special. One item I do have in abundance is fresh oregano since it survived the winter and exploded into new growth in April. I have never had pesto made with oregano, but figured this particular type of oregano would work well in pesto. It has more of a minty taste to it than a pungent flavor typical of fresh oregano. I think it could be Greek Oregano, but it’s plant identification marker has long since disappeared. So the lunch special for one was shaping up, Whole Wheat Pasta in Oregano Pesto. I had some pine nuts in the freezer that were still quite fresh, and some farmer’s market asparagus in the fridge from yesterday’s shopping downtown for the dish. I figured that the asparagus would be a nice touch.

I confess to having pesto on the brain since I read a post from one of my favorite bloggers, Marge Perry’s Sweet and Savory Life, this morning that included a pesto recipe. That recipe was quite different in that it used linguine, basil, spinach etc that I did not use. I probably would have done her recipe except my basil is not in production mode yet.

I put this all together in about 25 minutes including boiling the pasta, cleaning the oregano, and food processing the pesto. Not to mention the distraction of making sure Tucker, our 8 week old German Shepard puppy wasn’t getting into trouble. I had fresh greens from the garden to serve as a perfect base. I set up for the photo part of the gig and, after shooting the photos sat down to sample my prize. It was quite good, but next time I will put some cilantro in with the oregano for a bit more herbal punch. Maybe even a jalapeno for fun. It’s just so much fun to experiment with all the amazing choices we have at our local grocery stores and farmers markets. From Fast and Furious Cook’s kitchen I wish you all a wonderful summer of experimenting with something new and fun.

Oregano Pesto

1 cup fresh oregano leaves

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1/2 cup roasted pine nuts

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1-2 fresh garlic cloves minced

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix parmesan cheese, pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, lime juice, salt and half of the oregano in a food processor. Scrape with spatula and add the rest of the oregano. Mix well, scrape and mix a bit more until all the pine nuts and broken up well.

Serve with your favorite pasta, hot or cold.

I went to one of my favorite foodie havens(Talula’s Table) on my way to a cooking demo at The Woodlands at Phillips Mushrooms. Talula’s is well known for their combo food market and restaurant. I was stopping by to get their french baquette for the cooking demo but was snagged by the free sample of the 5 year aged gouda cheese while browsing. This stuff has seriously great taste that makes you want more. The gouda went well on top of my Maitake mushroom bruschetta at Phillip’s, but I had a good amount of it left over. I pondered what to do with it over the last two days and at about 5 this morning while laying awake in bed I got inspired to make a special breakfast using the gouda.

the goods

I had some Kale leftover from my brussel sprout and kale salad, and remembered reading about kale for breakfast on www.greennapkinnutrtion.com. I also had some beautiful oyster mushrooms from Phillip’s so I sauteed the mushrooms with 10/15 sweet yellow onions in garlic infused olive oil.

When the onions and mushrooms were halfway cooked I added the kale and cooked it for a few more minutes.

saute time

I also had some nice Wisconsin Cheddar Sourdough dinner rolls from Talula’s that I sliced to a half inch thick cut and popped them in the toaster for the base. I put the mushroom and kale mix on top of the bread that had an over easy egg set on top of it. I placed shaved gouda on top of the egg and broiled it for about a minute and a half. I cooked up some home fried potatoes and sliced an avocado and orange for garnish to round it all out. The result? An amazing breakfast for a good start to the weekend.

If you want to give this a try here’s the basics:

A handful of kale

a handful of oyster mushrooms, or whatever you have available

about a third cup of diced sweet onion

garlic infused olive oil

toast of some type for the base

aged gouda

and a willingness to experiment!

Breakfast time

Spring has sprung in Baltimore. After months of cold days and freezing nights the forecast for the next five days has us reversing course in a big way. The overnight lows for the next several days are higher than the daytime highs have been for months. With night time lows in the mid 60’s I am getting my vegie garden going. Daytime highs are going to be in the 80‘s tomorrow if the weather guessers are right. Soon my Rocky Top lettuce blend will be feeding us amazing fresh salads. The peas won’t be far behind. Then in June the first fresh salmon from Cordova Alaska’s Copper River will show up. It won’t be until July that the first tomatoes from my garden will make an appearance on the table. About that time Moore’s Orchard across the street from me will be selling the first of the season peaches. Ah, I can just close my eyes and taste the first juicy peach already. But hey, it’s April and that means Asparagus is in season and showing up on my grocery store shelf. This is not the stuff from Peru or other points south. This is North American asparagus and I’m ready to buy some. Last night I made one of my favorite meals. It was Baked Salmon, with a side of Oven Baked Asparagus and Quinoa Pilaf. This is a simple,healthy meal that takes just 20-25 minutes from start to finish. If you subscribe to my Enewsletter on my blog you will receive two of recipes, Quinoa and Asparagus) that are not featured here so please sign up as it costs you nothing but a couple minutes of your time. For now however I will share with you the salmon recipe. I hope you enjoy it.

Baked Salmon Filets

1 pound salmon filets skinned and cut into 4 portions

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

In a individual baking dish or cookie sheet place salmon skin side down. Rub salmon filets with oil, then drizzle lemon juice over them. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the filets and bake for 10-15 minutes or until salmon flakes when pressed on. Don’t overcook.

Note:

I like to add a touch( 1/2 teaspoon) dried or fresh thyme for a nice herbed flavoring.

A bit of garlic powder is a nice touch too. A little goes a long way.

I highly recommend Alaska salmon over farmed salmon when available.

Baked Salmon Dinner Trio

Live from Maine

There are cooking blogs out in the blogosphere that have mostly high fat, high calorie recipes on their blogs, but not me. However, I do realize the value of a special occasion meal, and since last night was our wedding anniversary we did it up! Now over the years we would sometimes go out for our anniversary to a special restaurant. Most of the time we prefer to stay at home and have some sort of lobster dish. Last night I bought 3 live lobsters and brought them home for a feast. I decided I’d do lobster two ways. First was the old standby of Lobster Newburg, a wonderful preparation with lobster sauteed in clarified butter with minced onions and mushrooms. It is thickened with roux, then the milk and sherry are added. A touch of ground white pepper, and nutmeg finish it off perfectly. To this dish I then added butter poached lobster as a garnish. This is a way of cooking lobster I learned from the book “Soul of a Chef” where chef Thomas Keller took up about a third of the book, and was highlighted in his French Laundry restaurant. Wow, it was good! To round out the plate I steamed whole brussel sprouts, and made a nice rice pilaf with a touch of saffron for flavor and color. I also served a small dish of corn relish for a mini salad course. The Roederer Estate sparkling wine was a perfect match, for both the main dish and the store bought fruit tart and cherry tart. All in all I was very pleased and will remember the evening fondly. And that my friends is what special occasion meals are all about! Great food is part of our lives, and one of the things we remember from special occasions. So by all means enjoy the good stuff, just don’t eat like this every night if you want to be healthy and active.

Fast and Furious Newburg Sauce for Two

1/3 cup white mushrooms diced small

1/4 cup yellow onion diced small

1 tablespoon clarified butter

1 cup whole milk

dash of ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

In a 1 quart pot saute the onions in the clarified butter on medium low for 3 minutes then add the mushrooms stirring often,(about every 30 seconds). Continue cooking for 8-10 minutes on medium low to cook out most of the moisture in the mushrooms stirring often. Add the flour to make a roux and cook 4 more minutes on low. Whisk in milk and turn heat up to medium stirring slowly but constantly until the sauce just starts to bubble and simmer. Add pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste. Remove from heat and cover until needed. Enough sauce for two servings, maybe even three.

Lobster Two ways,
butter poached and Newburg

For the lobsters.

I use an 8 quart pot to precook my lobsters in, but as long as you can get a lid on you can use a smaller pot for this step. Fill the pot about one third full of water, cover, and bring to a boil. When the water comes to a boil drop the lobster in head first, belly up. Cook for 3-4 minutes on high heat and remove to cold water to stop the cooking process. Repeat for each lobster. After lobsters cool , the meat should come out easily when the shells are cracked open. Cut lobster tail into bite sized pieces, and leave claws whole. Dry the lobster pieces with paper towels and saute in clarified butter in a medium sized saute pan on medium heat for 5-8 minutes. Drain lobster butter off into a bowl to save for bread dipping(yum!). Add Newburg Sauce to the pan and heat just until it starts to simmer. Pour into preheated baking dishes if you have them and serve with sliced French bagguette slices.

Serves two but is easily doubled.

Note:

* I used three 1 1/2 pound lobsters for this dish, and had a bit of lobster meat leftover for lobster hash the following morning.

Lobster Hash