Caldo Gallego

I really couldn't tell you what inspired me to try this recipe, it's at least 100 degrees outside in Austin and I made soup for dinner. Caldo Gallego, a Galician Stew is not a dish I am familiar with - but something in the ingredient list spoke to me. Maybe it was the mystery behind cooking with a smoked ham hock that drew me in - I had NO IDEA where to find one of those in the grocery store.

My version of Caldo Gallego was inspired by Bitchin' Camero.  Caldo Gallego is a traditional Spanish soup with as many variations as minestrone. It is generally a brothy soup with  beans, diced meat, vegetables and greens. My version includes bacon, smoked ham hock, potatoes, diced ham, spanish onion, kale, garlic, cannelini beans and paremsan rinds.

 

I chopped the bacon into small bits and browned over medium heat in my dutch oven. Use your biggest pot, this is making a lot of soup and it's GREAT left over and reheated. I cooked until the bacon fat was rendered and then I added two ham hocks. To answer my previous question - there were fresh ham hocks in the meat section of my grocery store. But I found these gems (smoked) near the chorizo and sausages.

Cover the ham hock with water and bring to a boil, cover and reduce to medium heat and simmer for an hour.

Meanwhile, I took two large russet potatoes and diced into one inch cubes.

Chop the onion into a small dice and mince a garlic clove - then add to the soup.

If you were going to cook this the traditional way, you would remove the ham hocks to a cutting board, and discard the bones  then cut the ham into small, bite-size pieces and return to soup. I'm a little funny (read: weird/abnormal) about pulling meat off the bone. I couldn't do it. Instead I removed the ham hocks to the trashcan (yes, I tossed them) and then added prepared diced ham to the soup.

Add potatoes, raise the heat to medium-high and bring to a slow boil for 20 minutes.

I keep a bag of Parmesan rinds in the fridge for this VERY reason - it will season your soup so nicely! A trick I learned from Mario Batali. I threw these in as the soup continued to cook, it turned out to be a great addition.

Drain the cans of cannelini beans and add those to the pot.

You can use kale, turnip greens or any thick green here. I used kale and coarsely chopped before adding to the soup.

Simmer for an additional 20 minutes.

Remove the parmesan rinds before serving. Like many soups, this is better the next day. Or at least after it cools and is reheated.

Serve with some hearty bread for dipping. This is comfort food at it's best, whether it's boiling outside or not.
 

 
{Caldo Gallego}

White Pizza with Roasted Garlic Sauce

This pizza recipe doesn't use tomatoes for the sauce but instead uses roasted garlic smeared on the pizza dough with caramelized onions and wilted spinach. I also made an accompanying roasted garlic sauce to dip the pizza into. Vampires beware.

I topped the pizza with seared chicken that I seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. This can easily be left off to make the pizza vegetarian.

I also caramelized some onions by sauteing them on medium-low heat with a little olive oil until they became sweet and brown. Try not to eat the caramelized onions one by one why you finish assembling the pizza.

Two types of cheese were used for this pizza: Mozzarella and Fontina.

I took half a bag of baby spinach and wilted it gently in a pot over medium heat.

Roasted garlic heads! I could make a dinner out of THIS, I love it so much. Just cut the tops off the garlic heads, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover and bake at 375 for 30 minutes to one hour. Garlic is ready when tops are brown and garlic is visibly bursting out of the top of the garlic head.

Using a mortar and pestle I ground the soft cloves of garlic into a paste.

For this recipe, I used a prepared pizza dough. To date I haven't tried to make my own dough although my new bread machine has a setting for dough that I plan to try soon. I first smeared the par cooked dough with garlic paste, then topped with wilted baby spinach and caramelized onions. Top with chicken pieces and lastly cover with cheese.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes or until cheese is brown and bubbly.

To accompany the White Pizza I made this Garlic Sauce by Emeril Lagasse.  It's made with milk, butter, flour, salt, cayenne and 3-4 heads of roasted garlic. Recipe below.

We both thought this was a great dinner and a nice change from the margarita pizza we both love. Next time I would like to try my hand at making my own pizza dough - I've read it's easy... I need to give it a shot. Also, I would like to start the recipe with crisping some bacon pieces, and then caramelizing the onion and boiling down the spinach in the drippings. Yum! I wouldn't change this recipe much beyond the addition of bacon. I thought it was great. The garlic sauce was interesting. It actually made way too much sauce for this purpose, but in the future I could use this to make a fine sauce for pasta!

{White Pizza with Roasted Garlic Sauce}

Italy, Day 5

Day five in Italy would have been our first day in Florence, but the tour group had planned a side trip to Pisa located 75 miles west of Florence. Jim and I contemplated sitting this day trip out and hanging on our own in Florence, but we would have an extra two days in Florence at the end of our vacation and would likely never make the special trip to Pisa in the future. We said what the hey, and went to Pisa.

Once we arrived to Pisa, we boarded a small tram that took us through the markets and to the Piazza del Duomo, where we found the top three attractions: The Duomo, the baptistry and the campanile (the bell tower of the church that leans.)

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this sign. It says, "The song that you are hearing are sung by the driver of this treeno. His CD's are sold on board for E10 each." The music sounded like soft classical songs recorded in a bathroom.

Pisa reached it's peak of power in the middle ages as a maritime republic before being overtaken by Florence and Genoa. If you want to get a Pisan all riled up, mention Genoa - I thought our local tour guides head would explode as she talked with such passion about that city.

It was hot here! It was hot everywhere, but in Pisa I felt I could fry an egg on the concrete. Not that I would have wanted to, there were thousands of tourists and street vendors lining the road that leads to the Duomo(church).

Everyone has to take a picture in front of the leaning bell tower. This is ours. It's proof that, yes, we wasted half a day to travel to this little town and look at the tower and say to ourselves, yup it's leaning just like everyone said it would.

We had a local guide take us into the Battistero (Baptistry) and point out the hexagonal pulpit (1255-60), and then the baptistry keeper came to the center, all the doors were closed, and he cooed into the rafters and we sat in silence as his voice echoed around and around the circular building. It was a bit of a bone chill.

We were told most baptistry's were square or hexigonal, but this was the only baptistry that was round. I couldn't find anything in my books that backed this up, but I didn't want to call our local guide a liar - I told you how heated she became while talking about Genoa.

The cathedral was designed in 1063 and errected in the 13th century. There was a terrible fire in the late 1500's that destroyed a lot of the original building.

Left from the original building are three bronze doors at the entrance and a spectacular lamp hanging from the ceiling over the pews. According to tradition, Galileo, a Pisa-born astronomer used this hanging lamp to formulate his law of the pendulum by timing how long it took to swing from side to side.

Although I've always assumed Pizza came from Pisa, it isn't so. We did have some darn good pizza in Pisa at Ristorante Maiori in Piazza Arcivescovado. They have a great flash website, although it isn't all translated in English.

The restaurant, owned and operated by chef Andrea from Naples, produces some ridiculously delicious Neapolitan pizza.

The pizza was not as thin as the pizza we ate in Rome. The pizza dough was covered with tomatoes and mozzarella and was cooked to perfection.

Jim and I had our evening free in Florence. We were very excited about our chosen dinner spot, although known to attract tourists, we wanted to go anyway. Of course Italians do not eat dinner until really late in the evening, so we decided to hit a few wine bars along the way and sample appetizers to help us make it to our late dinner time.

I didn't catch the name of this wine nook, but we certainly had a great time. Our server spoke perfect English, as well as six other languages! Six! I was ashamed that I only spoke one. He was so nice, and knowledgeable about wine. We sampled from a few bottles, before we chose what glass we wanted to enjoy. I tried to get a picture of this really nifty pour spout they used, but he moved SO fast, all my pictures came out blurry.

I decided to have this Le Masse Di Greve made by Lanciola.

Trying to be adventurous, we ordered an appetizer of lard and honey. I know, what were we thinking? When would we be able to order something as absurd as lard and honey anywhere else?

Jim decided to have a glass of this Le Masse Di Greve Chianti Classico 2004 Reserve made by Lanciola

I didn't care too much for the appetizer, and discovered lard isn't my thing. But I did really enjoy the wine and the small dish of black olives they served us.

While searching for our dinner location we rounded a corner and I stopped Jim and asked, "Do you hear Alan Jackson?" We stood motionless until we could hear the faint country music wafting towards us.

We followed the sound of "Don't Rock the Jukebox" until we found this little Guitar Club.

We didn't return to this live country music spot, because there was no way we would have found it again.

This is what we looked like the entire time in Italy. Confused with the map, standing on a corner searching for a street name and LOST. I was always completely lost and lucky for me Jim was only lost 75% of the time. We laughed about it (most of the time) and enjoyed our adventures exploring the back streets of Rome, Florence and Venice.

Our first dinner out in Florence (the first night we ate at the hotel) was at La Giostra, a popular fine dining restaurant. Upon entering the restaurant the walls surrounding the hostess stand are covered with no less than 50 autographed photos of famous people (Brad Pitt and Ron Perlman to name a few) posing with the executive chef. 

Because we knew a lot of food was going to be brought to the table, we decided against ordering an appetizer - although this plate was brought to the table anyway. It was an assortment of canapes like toasted bread with liver pate, and sliced meats. We sampled a little bit of everything but really tried to hold off until our handmade pastas arrived.

I ordered the Risotto con asparagi e zucchine (rice with fresh asparagus) and I thought it was beautiful, but lacking in flavor and the rice was undercooked with too much "bite."

Jim's pasta course was the Tortelli di crostacei pomodorini e gamberi (tortelli with crustaceans cherry tomatoes and shrimps.) It looked and tasted great!  I had the Ravioli with pear and pecorino cheese for my entree, although I didn't get a good picture of the dish. The restaurant was lit by candlelight and a few strands of twinkle lights overhead, making it incredibly romantic but near impossible to take good photos.

For Jim's entree he ordered the Ossobuco (knuckle of veal ) florentine style (with beans in tomato and sage sauce). This picture looks like a complete mess, and actually the plate did look like a mess - however Jim said it tasted great.  

I was excited to see that that Ristorante la Giostra has its own web site and a page of recipes. Their original recipe for Ravioli with pear and pecorino cheese was in Italian and the web site also give the english translation. I don't know about you, but I find this difficult to follow. 

Ravioli with William’s Pear and Pecorino Cheese
(I did not make any edits, this is copied straight from the web site.)

There are few people who really prepair the handmade pasta by their self. So, Liliana, who do it for La Giostra (she cames from Emilia Romagna, a very famous shire for pasta), is really gelous about her recipes. We hope the following is right and we think is the best we could have from her...


You need to prepair a homemade sheet pastry with eggs and wheat flour (one egg for person from a minimum of four). The secret here is that when you have finish to knead the pastry it needs to rest for a while. Than you will stend it and here something about the machine. If you do it with the machine who has the rolls in metal the pasta will be very smooth and silky. This is not a merit because the sauce doesn’t fasten with the dish. You must use the wood’s roll and “tend” the pastry very slim.

The stuffing is prepared with William’s pear and Pecorino Cheese. The choise of first is difficoult because you need some fruits a little bit unripe for the less water inside and ligther aroma, than a good and not aged Pecorino. Here, Liliana who prepeared at La Giostra doesn’t confirm but I think she puts one “red” of a egg to fasten the stuffing...

For the sauce is something very delicate like a good butter with a bit of aromatic herbs.

For the wine with, try a Pinot noir from Alto Adige (blauburgunder) if you like red; with sauvignon blanc Conte della Vipera Antinori, if you prefear a whiteone.

Probably an easier recipe to follow would be this one I found on the Williams-Sonoma web site.
Pear & Pecorino Ravioli with Walnuts

The Williams-Sonoma recipe is inspired by Italian Chef Lidia Bastianich. Her original recipe for Ravioli “Cacio Pepe e Pere” (fresh ravioli stuffed with pear and pecorino cheese) can be found on her site.

Are these leftovers still good to eat?

Jim often asks, “Are the leftovers from (whenever) still good?” My usual response is to sniff it and taste it. If I don’t see mold and it doesn’t smell funky I say it’s safe to eat – but is that the right response? If cheese looks and smells fine I don’t have a problem with it being in the fridge for a month – or longer, and even when mold does appear I cut it off before Jim sees it. I do the same thing with his bread – just pinch the mold off before making him a sandwich with the last two slices of (moldy) bread. Am I slowly killing my husband?

Is yogurt still safe after the sell by date? How long can you keep thawed ground beef?

I get asked these questions all the time and I don’t always know the answer, but I was on blogher.com and they pointed me towards a terrific site that can tell you whether to keep or toss an item: Still Tasty has a database of thousands of food items that you can browse the shelf life of, and they also feature an FAQ section that I found invaluable last week when I cleaned out the pantry and fridge. I’d like to add that Still Tasty has no idea who I am, I’m sharing the link to their site simply because it’s a new discovery of mine that will really help me out and I want to share it with you also.

Our pantry BEFORE.

When I say we cleaned out the pantry and fridge, I mean that we gave the kitchen an overhaul starting with emptying the cupboards, cleaning, organizing and re-arranging. This included our completely disorganized and stuffed PANTRY and the FRIDGE that may have housed hazardous material. With Jim’s help we pulled the contents of the pantry out on the kitchen table, shelf by shelf. We checked all the dates, referenced Still Tasty, and tossed quite a few items. Some things were no brainers, like granola bars dating back to 2007.

Our (new and improved) pantry AFTER.

The result is an organized pantry that has easy to access items grouped logically on my shelves. Even better, I was able to refresh my memory on WHAT was in the pantry. Instead of buying ANOTHER can of black beans at the grocery store, I now know that we have three. It was like finding money. As we tossed items, we made a list of what needed to be replaced. I thought we had plenty of crackers, but they were actually all stale. I would recommend doing this at least twice a year.

And the answers to your burning questions:

What do you do when you find yogurt in the back of your fridge and the sell-by date was a week ago? Eat it or toss it? Still Tasty says that yogurt that has been properly stored will generally remain safe for at least 7 to 10 days after the "sell-by" date on the package. They even reference the safety specialists at Clemson University’s Cooperative Extension. Bear in mind the temperature of your refrigerator must remain at or below 40° Fahrenheit at all times. If mold appears on yogurt, or if it develops an off odor, flavor or appearance, you should always discard it immediately.

If you thawed some ground beef in the fridge today, and your dinner plans change – what do you do with the meat? Still Tasty says you’ve got some breathing room. Ground beef that’s been defrosted in the fridge can be safely kept for an additional one to two days in the refrigerator before cooking, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And since you thawed the ground beef in the fridge, you can also safely refreeze it within that same time frame, says the USDA. None of this would apply, on the other hand, if you had thawed the ground beef in the microwave or in cold water. You should immediately cook meat thawed under either of those methods, advises the USDA, since it could easily warm up to the 40°F temperature at which harmful bacteria begins to multiply rapidly.