There's something about leftovers

Deborah takes home a doggie bag...

The trees say late fall, the weather says late summer. 

Any Italian restaurant that fills their antipasto display table with vegetable dishes gets a giddy reaction out of me. I am reminded of the restaurants I have wandered into in Rome that showcase multiple tiers of cooked vegetable dishes one can choose from to start a meal Roman style. Bellisimo!

The restaurant Pesce Pasta on the upper west side of Manhattan was a place I knew nothing about, but being hungry I peeked in. When I saw the vegetable antipasto sitting out on a display table right by the front door I was sold.  Ordering a plate of sauteed greens in Italian restaurants is a must for me when I feast on pasta. This night I ordered the escarole, a leafy member of the endive family that is also used as a lettuce green. A HUGE portion arrived at the table, far more than my dining companions and I could consume, although we tried.  The remaining greens came home with me. How lucky!

Pesce Pasta's Escarole with Garlic

Whole nutmeg shown here in its shell.

This time of year as we inch towards Thanksgiving, I have gratins on my mind. They are hit-the-spot soulful preparations that can be quickly assembled and lovingly devoured hot out of the oven. This recipe for Escarole Gratin can be made from leftover sauteed greens like I had on hand or made with uncooked escarole that is blanched in boiling water for a few minutes until tender. The white sauce, or bechamel, is a classic technique that I frequently use. It is really easy to make and is a recipe worth learning as it is a good basic sauce to add a hearty richness to any vegetable preparation.

Escarole Gratin

2 Tbs. Butter
2 Tbs. flour
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
 2 cups of cooked escarole (either blanched or sauteed)
1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
Melt the butter in a small sauce pan. Add the flour and quickly whisk the two together. Pour in the milk and allow the mixture to come to a low boil. Continue to whisk to smooth out any lumps as the sauce begins to thicken. Add the nutmeg and salt and pepper. In a large bowl mix the thickened sauce with the cooked escarole and the grated cheese. Pour mixture into an oven proof dish. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the top starts to turn golden. Serve immediately.

Tiny Bubbles

Amanda

Valentine's Day is quickly upon us. I can't think of another "holiday" which evokes such a wide range of attitudes. For some it is dreaded, for others it is revered. I, myself, will be stag this Valentine's Day while my husband is on a flight back from San Diego. Nonetheless, Valentine's Day is typically a day I enjoy. For me, it is really just an excuse to share some superb bottles of wine and an exquisite meal with my hubby.


Like flowers and chocolate, Champagne is a must-have for Valentine's Day. This is a day that screams for a bottle of Rose - I don't know why, but there is something more "romantic" about it. People often think of Champagne as a libation to "toast" with, or to enjoy before a meal. But it is also one of the best accompaniments to the meal itself. Experiencing a superb bottle of Champagne with a delectable dish is truly one of the great luxuries in life. There is just something so satisfying and special about bubbly and a perfectly paired meal.

Dining at home is a popular option these days as many are watching their wallets. So, we thought we'd give you all the necessary ingredients to creating a special night at home with your love! A bottle of bubbly is the first place to start. My absolute favorite Rose Champagne is from Ruinart. This Champagne house is the oldest in France. Fine, elegant, and powerful, this Rose is an incredible match for food. A blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, it is actually better when enjoyed with food than casually sipped. Domaine Ruinart Brut Rose will work particularly well with a "rich" dish. It is full of wild cherry notes and is wonderfully concentrated.

While a bottle of Ruinart sells for $70, there are plenty of more affordable options. At $59, Taittinger Brut Prestige Rose is another great option (although it is still a bit pricey, it is actually considered a great value). With fine bubbles and a brilliant pink hue, it has a velvety mouthfeel and wonderful fresh fruit flavors.


Still, there are great values for sparkling Rose outside of France. Many can be found in California, for very affordable prices. In this category, I would recommend the Chandon Blanc de Noirs for only $15.99 per bottle. This bottle of bubbly is made from a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. With dominating rich fruit flavors of black currant and strawberry, there is such a delightful creaminess on the palate making this an ideal "food" partner.


These wines are definitely worth seeking out for this special day! To complete our recipe for a great night in, I will turn to Deb for food advice. Deb - these are three incredibly food-friendly choices. I would say a dish with some richness would be ideal. What special recipe would you recommend pairing with these celebratory, romantic sparklers?


Deborah
Champagne sipped with a rich meal is one of my favorite treats! Valentine's day is as good an excuse as any to indulge yourself and loved ones with a great dinner. I have been noticing pumpkin ravioli popping up on menus and in markets for awhile and have tried it once or twice in restaurants, but never made it myself. It seems like a rich and special-enough dish to perfectly compliment any of the sparkling Rose wines Amanda has suggested.

To make the recipe, I started with fresh pumpkin and roasted it for extra flavor. My first thought was to use walnuts in the recipe, but then I decided to go with pepitas (pumpkin seeds)  instead. I toasted the seeds with some seasoning and ended up with plenty of extra to toss on salads or to snack on, a nice treat in itself! To continue with the filling I ground the toasted pepitas in a food processor then added some scallions, sage, goat cheese and the roasted pumpkin and blended till smooth.

Wonton wrappers make easy work and very tasty ravioli! They seal easily with a little water.

For the sauce I decided rather than introducing more ingredients I would use the same elements that were in the filling as a compliment to the dish. Cubing up some of the roasted pumpkin to add to the sauce adds color and texture and it is in keeping with the sauce that mirrors what is going on inside the ravioli.

 Toasted pepitas and fried sage leaves make a really pretty garnish

There was a fair amount of pumpkin filling left over so I decided to follow Jacques Pepin's lead by using it in a gratin, similar to the one he made on Fast Food My Way last week.  I ended up with three recipes in the quest for one: the toasted pepitas, the pumpkin ravioli and the pumpkin gratin. I guess this becomes a fair amount of work. If you want to kick back and be taken care of on the big V-day then make reservations and enjoy! But if you happen to be feeling plucky and inspired and want to lavish a little love on yourself and a special someone then GO FOR IT! Call it a labor of LOVE.

Pumpkin Ravioli with a Creamy Goat Cheese & Sage Sauce 
For the Ravioli:
2 cups of fresh pumpkin 
1 Tbs olive oil
1/4 cup *toasted pepitas -see garnish recipe below
1 scallion minced
2 Tbs minced fresh sage
1/4 cup goat cheese
3 Tbs. heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
1package of wonton wrappers
2 quarts of salted water
Cut the pumpkin into large chunks and toss with the oil. Roast at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, until the pumpkin is tender. Set aside 1/2 cup of the cooked pumpkin for the sauce. Put the pepitas in the bowl of a food processor and pulse till finely ground. add the pumpkin, scallion, sage, heavy cream and goat cheese and pulse till well blended. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper accordingly.
Lay wonton wrappers on a flat surface and put 1 teaspoon of filling in the middle of each one. With your fingertip run a bit of water around the edge of the wrapper and fold the wrapper in half to seal the filling inside. Figure on about 10 raviolis per person. There will be enough filling to make enough for 8 people (that is a lot of Love!) Use the left over filling to make the pumpkin gratin recipe that follows. Boil the water in a large pot and carefully drop the raviolis into the pot. They will cook in about 5 minutes and come bobbing up to the surface. Gently strain. Toss with the sauce (below) and garnish with the pepitas and sage leaves before serving. 


for the Creamy Goat Cheese Sauce:

1/2 cup roasted pumpkin cut into small cubes
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup Goat Cheese
2 Tbs. chopped fresh sage
1 scallion cut into small rings
salt and pepper to taste
Combine all the ingredients in a small sauce pan and heat till simmering. Allow sauce to gently simmer for 5- 10 minutes till the goat cheese melts and the flavors develop. Taste to adjust seasoning. Add the cooked ravioli to the sauce and gently turn them so they are covered with the cream sauce.


For the Garnish:
1/2 cup pepitas
1/4 teas. cayenne pepper
1/4 teas. ground allspice
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 bunch of fresh sage leaves
2 Tbs. flour
3 Tbs. Olive oil.
Toss the pepitas with the cayenne, allspice, salt and oil and lay on a flat cookie sheet. Place in a 350 degree oven for 6-8 minutes till toasted. Keep an eye on them so they don't burn. They can be stored in an airtight container for 2 weeks.
meanwhile- dredge each sage leave in flour and shake off excess. Heat olive oil in a small skillet and cook the sage leaves quickly in the oil till they crisp up and the color darkens, about 30 seconds. They will burn so watch them carefully. Drain on a paper towel.


Pumpkin Gratin:
Take the leftover pumpkin filling and add 1 beaten egg for every cup of filling you have. Butter a baking dish and pour the pumpkin egg mixture in. Top with some more cheese if you like. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until the filling sets. 

Hurrah for the CSA

Deborah

My sister Denise and her husband are traveling in VietNam for three weeks. Denise is a great cook and a very adventurous eater. I cannot wait to hear about her travels when she gets home. Hopefully she will bring back some culinary tidbits and techniques from afar.  Graciously, while she is away I was given one week of produce from her CSA farm share. What a treat for me! I do not belong to a CSA which stands for Community Supported Agriculture, where you buy shares in a local farm and receive a percentage of their produce every week during their growing season. This arrangement provides cash to the small farmers up-front, a pre-sold market as it were, and gives the shareholders wonderfully fresh produce and direct access to their grower.

The Roxbury Farm delivers on Thursdays to the Upper West Side and I was told to bring my own bags. The fruits and vegetables were laid out in a small courtyard and each variety was labelled with how much you could take as part of your share. How fun!

As I expected for this time of year, there was kale and butternut squash, broccoli, onions, potatoes, loose lettuce and arugula and some beautiful pears. I thought I would try to come up with a recipe that used these ingredients and have a real farm fresh meal. My idea ran towards a gratin; layering the kale and the butternut squash and baking it in white wine and butter.

Filling my bag with goodies.

The Roxbury's kale was crazy fresh. It was so stiff and full and bushy I could have swept the floor with it! I knew I would have to cook it down somewhat before adding it to the gratin or it would be too tough. I did my usual saute with garlic and oil to add flavor and wilt it down a bit.

I wanted thin slices of the squash, so after peeling it I cut it into manageable chunks and pushed it through my mandoline . I have to admit this was a bit hair-raising as the squash is so firm you really have to push hard to get it through the blade. Here I was risking my fingers when I was really not sure how the dish would turn out.
My main concern was that the squash would be too sweet and over power the kale, so when I began to layer everything I decided to go light on the squash.
The results were good. As it turned out, it was the kale that really dominated with a very meaty, chewy texture. The butternut squash was quite mild but held its own. The kids ate a few bites and didn't hate it. I had leftovers today for lunch and actually liked it all the more the next day. As so often happens overnight, the flavors mellowed out and blended a bit. This dish became a really satisfying meal that was filling and very tasty. I would definitely make this for my vegetarian clients. What would you suggest for a wine pairing Amanda?

Kale and Butternut Squash Gratin
1 Tbs. Olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup chopped onion
I bunch of kale trimmed of stems and roughly chopped
1/2 cup water
2 Tbs. butter
1 small butternut squash peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup white wine
s & p

preheat oven to 350F

Heat the oil in a pan and add the onion and garlic, cooking till golden, about five minutes. Add the kale and cook down for at least ten minutes till the kale begins to wilt and turn bright green. Add 1/2 cup of water to the kale and cover the pan and cook another 10 minutes till kale is tender.

First layer

Next time I will add add more squash to the top layer.

Butter a baking dish with 1 Tbs. of butter and layer in half of the butternut squash slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and dot with a teaspoon of butter. Make a layer of cooked kale on top of the squash. Then add the top layer of squash, s & p and dot with the remaining butter. Pour in the white wine and bake uncover for 1 hour until the squash is tender when you pierce it with a knife.

I took a bite before I took a photo! Really tastes good.

serves 4

Amanda
Sounds like the perfect Fall dish! Kale, when very fresh, can have such big, savory flavors. I really wanted to come up with a wine that would result in an interesting flavor combination. The sweet and spicy flavors that kale can deliver immediately made me think of Gewurztraminer. One of my favorite varietals, it is often associated with flavors and aromas of lychee fruit. It is extremely aromatic and really thrives best in cooler climates. The wines are usually dry, or off-dry (meaning there is a slight touch of sweetness to the wine). Gewurztraminer is commonly paired with Asian cuisine. I absolutely adore the perfumed, flowery bouquet this delicious varietal gives off. It's wonderful! The wine can be lush and rich, which is exactly how I like it.


Gewurztraminer is certainly not a subtle wine, which is why I think it is a good match for the kale and butternut squash combination. It can be decadent and exotic as well - be sure to consider it for hard-to-match recipes. My favorite Gewurztraminer hales from Alsace, France. Favorite producers are Trimbach and Zind Humbrecht. Typically $15 and up,  (into the $50-$60 range for late harvest, sweeter versions) this is a wine that is absolutely worth the splurge! If you haven't yet tried this decadent white, I hope you will soon! I'd love to hear if you love it as much as I!