A Recipe with Roots in the Great British Rain--Heavenly Penne with Creamy Dijon Sausage Sauce

A Recipe with Roots in the Great British Rain

Heavenly Penne with Creamy Dijon Sausage Sauce

I first tried this recipe when our family lived in England. The original recipe can be found in Nigel Slater’s fabulous cookbook, Real Food. Nigel Slater is one of my favorite creative people on earth.  Another great British chef, you ask? Yes! There are so many. Britain, once known for their bland cuisine, has positively taken over the cooking cavalry. It won’t be the first time in history when we have asked ourselves how such a tiny little island could become so dominant.  

There are many reasons why Britain conquered the world. Perhaps all that rain has something to do with it. Rain causes people to sit indoors and think things through. The British climate contributes to this great cream sauce.  Rain produces great grass, grass feeds great cows, cows produce great cream, and great cream makes this pasta sauce taste absolutely fantastic. Cream, milk, cheese and butter are a huge source of pride for British dairy farmers, and our family knew we were going to miss these heavenly assets when we moved back to America in 2005.

On a cold, rainy day in Cardiff, my husband Peter and our extended family sat around the kitchen table and someone asked us what we would miss most about Britain.

“Dairy,” my husband said.

There was dead silence in the room.

“Ahem, everyone in this room,” I added.

“Ah,” said my sister-in-law with a warm smile, and everyone giggled.  “Right answer.”

In all fairness to my husband, can you blame him? For starters, he probably did not want anyone to suffer the torture of an outpouring of parting grief. I am Italian, so I thrive on emotional outbursts, and have never been one to hide my feelings.  Furthermore, this is a man who met his wife after accepting an invitation to a roast turkey dinner the night before Thanksgiving. He leads with his gut.

But Peter did make a fair point. I  miss the dairy from our home in England. Cream is one of the finest contributions to British cuisine. Our heavy whipping cream in the USA is a lot thinner than British ‘double cream’, so we cannot just heat the cream through and toss through pasta, or it will be soupy.

There are ways to thicken cream that involve flour, cornstarch, or other thickeners.  I prefer simply to simmer the cream along, and reduce the water out to leave a pure, gorgeous, heavenly and naturally thick cream sauce.  Plus, the wine and Dijon mustard have more time to converse, commune and exchange magical chemical components that add up to a taste that will explode in your mouth and light up a friend’s eyes.   

When I lived in England, I also became acquainted with a fairly foreign concept to me known as normal portion sizes. So take note here. If you are trying this dish in our cold Chicago April, but want to prepare for a hot Chicago summer, you may want to shrink your body and your portion size.  

If you want half the calories, I suggest half the amount. Fill the rest of your plate with steamed veggies.  You can mop up some of the veggies with that sexy sauce, and it will make the last bite of the heavenly cream much easier to suffer its emotionally torturous goodbye.

Renata’s version of a classic Nigel Slater recipe:

Heavenly penne with sausage, cream, white wine, Dijon mustard and garlic

• 1 pound De Cecco pasta (a short, nubby shape like penne or rigatoni will be great for stabbing onto a hunk of creamy sausage)
• 1 pound of outstanding sausage (Jake’s Country Meats, Enzo’s Restaurant, or other simple, organic sausage) Buy the sausage loose if you can, which will save you time cutting open the casings to sauté in pan
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream (a one pint container of Dean's or even better, go organic)
• 1 cup white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc because I like to drink it while I cook. Use any white wine.)
• 4 cloves (+/-) chopped garlic
• 1 heaped tablespoon Dijon mustard (Maille brand is great.)
• Optional:  freshly grated Parmesan cheese to taste/chopped fresh basil

(This recipe is based on Nigel’s recipe. He adds a cup of sliced fresh basil, which you can certainly add, and omits the garlic. Nigel uses grain Dijon mustard and red pepper flakes, I used plain Dijon.  I also heap with Parmesan cheese at the table.)

Put a huge pot of water on to boil your pasta and add plenty of salt before cooking.

Now prepare your sauce.

In a large pan, break up one pound of sausage meat and cook through. Add chopped garlic, and sauté a moment.  Add mustard, white wine, and cook so liquid simmers with small bubbles, about five minutes. Let the heavenly aroma hit your senses.

Stir in cream and simmer (again, the sauce should form fine bubbles on top) until sauce is thickened to the way you like it, about 15 minutes, depending on the brand of cream you are using. 

While you wait for your sauce to thicken, this is a good time to drop your pasta and boil.

You can walk away from the sauce and stir occasionally, just don’t let the heat go so high that it boils over.  Eventually, the water will reduce down by about a third or maybe more and you will be left with a lovely, thick, creamy, consistency. 

Drain pasta and pour thick, creamy sausage sauce on top and stir through. Dig your boulders of sausage and proudly display them on top of your bowl of pasta in triumphant taste victory.  Add freshly grated Parmesan and a little chopped fresh basil if you like.  

Helpful links for today's recipe and story:

Today's  culinary hero:  http://www.nigelslater.com/

Enzo's Restaurant to call and order sausage for shipment: http://enzos1.com/  Tell Kyle Hallberg, my fabulous nephew, or Lisa Hallberg, my favorite sister, that Renata's Kitchen sent ya.

Jake's Country Meats (they drop at farmer's markets in suburban Chicago):  http://www.jakescountrymeats.com/

4 Reasons why Britain conquered the world (but Chicago won my heart...teehee!): http://kenbaker.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/4-reasons-why-britain-conquered-the-world/ 

Why are we so hungry for answers about food?

What problem are we really trying to solve?

This Easter our kids ditched the coloring kit in favor of writing messages on their eggs. Perhaps being raised by a mother who is a perpetual daydreamer caused my teenagers to hunt for order and logic in science and math. In our home there are numbers, numbers everywhere and not a drop of poetry to drink. 

But maybe logic and intuition are not as diametrically opposed as I think they are.  My love of food is not just a hedonistic, artistic endeavor.  I have always been hypersensitive to foods and can get tired and sick if I put the wrong 'gas' in my tank.  At age 45, I feel my body has suddenly reached its "40,000 mile warranty" .I am looking for that elusive formula that keeps this old minivan of a mom running smoothly.  

So I research food.  My friends and I talk about food. We talk about what is working and what isn't working.  It can be overwhelming to know when to stop. When I start circling in the tank with my other foodie friends, I wonder if we are becoming food perfectionists, searching for answers.

We question protein, fish, vegetables, power foods, omega 3 fatty acids, flax seeds, chia, GMOs and organic, toxic free solutions. I have friends who will only shop at Wholefoods, never shop at Wholefoods (GMO labeling rage), refuse to subject themselves to fertilizers, unfiltered water, food that isn't local, chemicals, packaged food, fast food, red meat, farmed fish, wild fish, white pasta, white sugar, white anything. I know folks who hate Dr. Oz, love Dr. Oz, and have myself been subject to quite an organic panic when I can't find my favorite foods. I have heard foodies hail carbs as the messiah, denounce carbs as Lucifer.  The other day I read a story about the dangers of omega fatty acid imbalance, and one  which deemed that the only sensible fat to cook with was goose fat.

"Goosefat?" I said to myself, and announced over my shoulder to my dogs,  "alright, enough is enough!" I shut down my computer, and went into the kitchen to defiantly saute some veggies in garlic and olive oil.

As I chopped my vegetables, I wondered if we were so ravenous for nutrition solutions that we are not enjoying the process of simply eating a humble bowl of home made food. Have we gotten so obsessed with what goes in our bread, that we aren't present while we are breaking bread? Not only do we want answers to our nutritive questions, we want them now.  No, we want them sooner than now.  We want them yesterday.  

Sauteeing in reverie, I began to wonder about the attempt to manage what we eat. If we become the authority of all the germs, all the chemicals, and the mechanics of the human body, can we inject some order in this seemingly chaotic universe?  Is this just a poetic dreamer's way of trying to delay the inevitable ending to the story she doesn't want to stop? Will we ever have the perfect equation that keep us humming smoothly? And if so, would we even want to be around that long? We'd be stuck with all the other perfectionists in the shark tank of survivors and find out who is the new power food! Eat or be eaten!

My stomach rumbled and shocked me out of my dietary daydream.  I sighed and sat down with my bowl of escarole,  cannellini beans, garlic and olive oil. It tasted like what I imagined my ancestors ate.  It felt good enough and simple, just as it was.

When I finished lunch and started cleaning up, I looked through my cabinet at the cornucopia of hope for my aging body:  menopausal herbal supplements, vegan grains I never heard of 10 years ago, and my newest quest for relief,  "Juice Plus"; the caplets that will add an extended warranty to my used car heart.  I don't plan to ditch these pills, my vitamins, my chiropractor, my organic food, or any other of my 21st century 'Mother's Little Helpers'.

I don't know if that's logical, but my intuition usually tells me what tastes good.

Steam Dream Easy Easter Eggs...From Our Family to Yours!

Steam Dream Easter Eggs

I don't have many regrets in life, but one of them is waiting 18 years to finally steam my Easter eggs instead of boiling them. They steamed beautifully and they didn't crack at all! 

1-Put steamer basket into large pot and fill with an inch or two of water, so water not quite coming up through holes in basket. Place a dozen eggs or so in basket so not touching pot.

 

2-Cover pot and turn on stove, bring water to strong simmer for ten minutes.

3-Turn off heat, leave in pot to cool, or take out and plunge into ice cold water if you need them for decorating right away.

On Easter, we always give our kids baskets, and conduct a full blown Easter Egg hunt in our pajamas! I don't know how this all started, but we are pretty crazy for games in our house.  Let's just say that the hunt and search can be quite complicated, and last for a good hour! The eggs are always hidden in clever spots, and just like most mysteries, the hardest one to find is the easiest to see. Once time,  I placed it uncovered in the center of a drain hole of our sink.  The hunters looked in every pot, canister, under every table, nook and cranny, but they didn't see the one in plain view in the laundry room! The dog got her revenge on us the next  year though when all the eggs went missing, shells and all. But we spotted one teensy, weensy piece of pale purple evidence in the corner of her crate.  She had eaten every hard boiled egg, shell and all! 

Easter, and other holiday traditions are different for every family.  My mom LOVES to make her trademark Easter Bunnies made out of candied popcorn that she has been making from scratch for over 50 years.  Wow! 

When we were kids, my brothers, sister and I would be in charge of  "gluing" the candied eyeballs and noses on the bunnies that my mom formed in her metal molds. We used corn syrup and tiny sticks! Then we would have to put their little ribbons around their necks and make sure they had tight curls for display. People in Chicago Heights and all over Chicagoland would come home for family visits and 'pop' in (haha) for a trip to The Carmelcorn Shop. They would maybe buy a box of carmelcorn, some pecan glaze my mom made, and a couple of these cute little bunnies. Click on the following link if you want to float down memory lane this Easter and get that sweet taste that has been cooking since 1931.

 http://www.thecarmelcornshop.com/

 Does anyone when the old movie theater used to be down the street? This gal does!

That's my mom, Nita Tribo. She's been cooking up carmelcorn, cheesecorn, popcorn bunnies, and lots of other delicious sweet treats for over 50 years! Where do you think I get my passion for cooking?  This is the original mad scientist!

So this holiday season, whatever part of the world you come from, and whatever religion you celebrate, from our family to yours, I wish you a happy feast, festive times, and many delicious memories. 

Detox-ilicous! 5 Minute Sneaky Fast Escarole, Potato and White Bean Detox Stew

Sauteed Escarole, Garlic, White Beans Over Sneaky Shortcut 

Potato

Saute three cloves sliced garlic with head of chopped escarole, olive oil to coat pan,  salt, and a couple ounces of water, and cover to steam.

Microwave a potato while it all cooks down. 

When all veggies soft, stir in drained can of white beans, take cooked potato out and chop up, toss through greens, and combine, taste for seasoning. 

Heap into bowl and top with grated Parmesan if not vegan.

I like to dazzle mine with hot cayenne pepper and squeeze of fresh lemon. Curry works well too! This one will clear out your sinuses and restore you to good health!

 Detox-ilicious!

At the Table with Sherry Hartmann

At The Table With Sherry Hartmann

Introducing one of my favorite freelance writers and people, Sherry Hartmann. Sherry is a mother of three who always amazes me with the wonder she injects into her daily life as she digs through the trenches with younger children. Sherry's vitality should come as no surprise. As a certified K-12 school teacher, the appreciation for all things great and small is evident in the way she writes, speaks and photographs the ordinary in an extraordinary way. Rock on, Wonder Woman. 

Enjoy the view through the lens of Sherry Hartmann here and in her delightful blog:

http://smashedmatatoes.wordpress.com/

"Eat Your Veg" never sounded so good!

More Broccoli Please

by Sherry Hartmann

For me, a meal must have a side of veggies.  This is often a tough one with regard to kids.  My kids are pretty good...well my girls are anyway.  My son is a  problem when it comes to getting him to try vegetables.  Heck, he is difficult with any food aside from eggs, pizza, liver sausage sandwiches or broccoli.  I realize that is quite a kaleidoscope of foods.  He may have a sundry palate, but he is finicky all the same.  Thank goodness there is a vegetable in his list of acceptable foods though.  All of my kids love broccoli.  It was a chore to get them to try it initially, but once they sank their teeth into a succulent spear smothered in butter, they were hooked.  Here is a little poem I wrote about that experience.  I also put my poor kids through a 5 minute broccoli themed photo shoot for kicks.  Why? Why not?

More Broccoli Please

It’s six o’clock, it’s dinner time

Time to come in from playing outside

Wash your hands and set the table please

But I’m so hungry, I really must eat

My tummy is growling and my knees are weak

What’s for dinner? It smells good to me

 

Ham and potatoes and cottage cheese

And something green that looks like a tree

Say it ain’t so, it just can’t be

Oh no it’s broccoli!

I’m not hungry, I can’t eat

I really don’t like it, it smells like feet

Where’s the dog, he usually begs

I guess he’d rather have dog food instead

There it sits on my plate

The only thing I haven’t ate

Just one bite, that’s all mom asks

Maybe if I chew it really fast

What if I smother it in lots of butter

Perhaps then it might not make me shudder

Into my mouth goes the little green tree

Mmm mmm more broccoli please!

To read more from the mind of Sherry Hartmann you can follow her on her delightful blog:

http://smashedmatatoes.wordpress.com/

No Shortage of Good Cooks in Da Family

 No Shortage of Good Cooks in Da Family

There is no shortage of good cooks in our family, and it's rare to talk to any one of us and not come away from the conversation with a taste for something that blows your mind. 

That's why when I thought about planning our first child's  high school graduation party, I knew exactly who I would call to cater the event.  My sister, Lisa, of course!

Lisa, her husband Kevin, and her son Kyle  have kept the same South Side magic in the recipes our parents started, and even added a few incredible additions to the stellar menu.  There is a magic ingredient in Lisa's veggie pasta salad that I refuse to reveal, but it's coming to the graduation party! 

Click here for Enzo's Restaurant website and check out "catering menu"

www.enzos1.com 

So how did we all become so obsessed with good food? It was only a few short decades ago that Lisa and I laughed in the back of Enzo's Restaurant, her in her "Yes" t-shirt, me in my round owl glasses and pig tails, and slowly but surely polished off a half a pan of Enzo's Restaurant's World Famous Meatballs.  Not much has changed since then, except my sister's hair isn't feathered as much, and I have gotten contacts.  But we are still addicted to "world famous food".

Enter my kids who love to taunt me, "erm, Mom, why is everything you make have to be 'world famous'?" 

"Well, my dad is  from Italy, your dad is from Wales, I'm from Chicago, so BOOM, there's your world,"  I say with airtight logic.  

So today's blog is a tribute to my favorite (and only) sister, Lisa Hallberg.  Her catering team will help me be calm on my daughter's high school graduation day, which will leave me plenty of time to get tipsy, play the piano badly, and sing off key. Ahhh, with that kind of send off, why would anyone want to move out of the house?

At the Table with Carol Pavlik: "Bring Me Back to Life" Morrocan Carrot Salad

At the Table with Carol Pavlik

I'd like to introduce you to one of my favorite foodie friends, Carol Pavlik.  My favorite thing about Carol is the way we can sit at the kitchen table and chew the fat for hours without missing a beat from the last time we connected.  No matter the drama surrounding family life, our conversation always comes back to food. Carol is one of those fun people who accepts life's curve balls, looks up with a tilt of the head and a smile, and may utter "ooooh, that reminds me, have you ever tasted...?" at any time. Carol is a mother of four, a freelance writer whose work was featured regularly on Patch.com and in Chicago Parent. She also works part time at Elmhurst Public Library. This recipe came up on our latest chat at the kitchen table.  I'm excited to try it!

Goodbye Polar Vortex, hello colorful carrot salad!

by Carol Pavlik

Hello Renata's Kitchen fans!

It’s been a long winter. The icy cold fingers of the past few months still have a hold on me. But I see daffodils popping up in our garden, and the sun is out, finally.

Just as spring was making her entrance, our family came down with the stomach flu and an awful chest cold. With four kids and two parents living together in close quarters, an illness making the rounds can last weeks! So we are still a bit worn out at our house. If you were to knock on my door today, I might offer you a hospital mask and say “Enter at your own risk”.

I’m tired of the sick food fare: the clear broth, plain noodles, endless glasses of juice, water, ginger ale, crackers. I need a little color in my life. It’s the perfect day to whip up something clean, fresh and healthy. Orange provides the energy of red and the happiness of yellow and gives me hope. So here is hoping that this dish brings us all back to life!

Carol’s “Bring Me Back to Life” Moroccan Carrot Salad

I love this kind of salad because there are so many ways to play with it.

You take four basic ingredients: carrots, raisins, chickpeas and lemon, and add what you like. It has a satisfying crunch, and although it’s good on the first day, it’s even better on the second day, when the flavors have soaked together. Keep a vat of this orange beauty and watch family members play with it in their own way! Good on its own, as a salad topping, inside a pita/wrap, or mixed into your favorite carb.

In a large bowl combine:

1 lb of carrots, grated, sliced in rounds or julienned. (I grate in my food processor. It’s fast.)
1 (14.5 oz) can chickpeas
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 tsp. cumin (or more, according to taste)
1/2 tsp. paprika (or according to taste)
juice of half a lemon
1 Tbsp. olive oil
sea salt

That’s it! Combine all these tasty ingredients and serve. Or chill and serve later.

Other possible add-ins/ons/unders:

-toasted cashews
-radishes
-cucumber
-scallions
-chunks of sweet red pepper
-feta cheese
-fresh cilantro, parsley, mint ... let your imagination run wild!
-rice

-quinoa

-barley

-cubed tofu

-a bed of lettuce to lay on

-snuggled up in a whole wheat tortilla

The main thing is you’re eating your veggies, getting some protein from the chickpeas, and you’ve made yourself a bowl of sunshine to grab (instead of junk food).  So eat away your sorrows!  Spring is here!  The Winter of the Polar Vortex is behind us. If we survived that, we can do anything!

Renata's Cheap and Cheerful Vegan Curried Cabbage Stir Fry

Renata's Cheap and Cheerful Vegan Curried Cabbage Stir Fry

(RECIPE FOLLOWS STORY)

If there is one thing I am always trying to do, it's save money without losing my integrity. Basically, that just means I wanna go cheap, but not so cheap that my chosen battles are compromised.

The one battle I have chosen for our family is home cooked food.  Although we eat out occasionally, I get in a really bad mood when I do eat out, because I can't ever seem to get my belly full of flavors that are as good as the ones I grew up tasting (and hence cooking.)  On top of the flavor factor, my dad grew up in WWII Italy, and let me tell ya, that guy does not like to waste stuff.  He once stood in my kitchen in London with his coat on, suitcase at the door, ready to go to the airport, when he insisted I cook him an egg which I was about to throw out (it passed its sell by date).

"Oh my GOD-O!" my dad said, because the word "God" always ended in an "O".

"Dad," I said,  "you're not responsible for ALL the wasted food in the entire world."

"Don't throw away that beautiful brown egg!" He said, taking no notice of what I said. "Fry it up, I'll eat it now!"

"But Baba!" I said, using his nickname, "You've got your coat on and the taxi is gonna be here in 5 minutes!"

"That's alright-O," he said with authority.  The brown egg was fried in a little olive oil, sprinkled with salt, and  wiped clean in the pan with a piece of Italian bread in the nick of time before the taxi service arrived. He never took his coat off.

He also never got sick on the egg.  I  never overbought eggs again.

So! That's me in a nutshell. Or in this case, in  an eggshell. I have been trained, conditioned and persuaded not to waste food.

Another cost cutting feature in my background is the fact that I grew up in an Italian restaurant. OK, I didn't actually grow up behind the counter, in the walk-in freezer, or under the sausage grinder.  We did have a lovely home. But somehow when I recall my youth, I always think of myself as the daughter of a sausage maker.  And when you have restaurant, you are always planning menus in your mind.  And they have to be cost effective!

So when my daughter Sophie announced that she was going vegan, I instantly started calculating costs.  I'm not a big fan of all the frozen patties and such, mostly because I feel I can whip up some rice, beans and veggies for much, much cheaper and I know where it all came from. What's convenient about food that costs so much you can't retire...ever?

Since I like to cook vegetables, and Sophie eats about 10 servings a day (her nickname is Baby Baba, after her grandpa 'Baba'), I had to work fast to figure out how to keep this girl floating in produce without breaking the bank.

So hunting I go for water soluble low-cent solutions.  One of my all-time favorite veggies?  Come to Mama, humble cabbage heads.  They aren't just nutrient rich vegetables, they are nature's beautiful art! If I could paint, I would use these colors. But I don't do art outside of the kitchen so this stir fry will have to suffice.

Whenever people are nervous about shopping at Wholefoods and spending the whole pay check, I always say,

 "You can eat organic cabbage like it's going out of style! Even the most expensive cabbage is cheaper than the least expensive meat."  At Wholefoods, a head of organic red cabbage won't set you back much more than a couple bucks.

What else does  red cabbage have to offer? It is a nutritional powerhouse loaded with vitamins C and K, folate and antioxidants.  In short, color me happy!

So today's recipe is a tribute to my dad, Enzo, who taught me that you don't have to spend a fortune to eat beautiful, home made, vegetable-laden family meals.  And that eggs are almost always just fine a little past their sell-by date.  If your name is Baba.  

(My kids' Grandma Nita and  Grandpa Baba)

This is one of those dishes that Sophie, my husband Peter and I  went "mano a mano" for leftover rights at lunch the following day. (Sophie won, duh.)  You will end up with a mountain of delicious slop, and can either add cooked rice at the end, or if you want a lower calorie option, simply serve as is.  

I like to  use curry to sex up just about any vegetable dish, a trick I learned living in England, where Indian and British culinary cultures live in glorious harmony. I found a pretty good prepared curry in a bag at Pete's Fresh Market on Roosevelt Road in Lombard, IL. (Swad Madras Curry Powder).  I love it so much, one day I may put a teaspoon of two on my shoe and eat it.

Renata's Cheap and Cheerful Vegan Curried Cabbage Stir Fry

1 small head red cabbage, chopped 
1 small  head regular white,green  or savoy cabbage, chopped (or sliced brussels sprouts, which are just like teensy cabbages)
1 small onion, and/or the upgraded shallot, chopped
3-4 (or 20) cloves garlic smashed and chopped
1 grated carrot
a healthy dose of olive oil (I used about 1/4 cup for this amount of food)
1/8 cup vinegar (Any type, I use rice wine vinegar, it never hurts my tummy. White wine vinegar would be slurp.)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup water
1-2 teaspoons of curry
1 tsp sugar 
1 tsp paprika (optional but I love the color)
1 tsp or enough salt to taste good to you
--------------

In your largest saute pan that has a lid, (or a giant wok,) saute onion (or shallot), garlic, in  olive oil until fragrant,  then add all the rest of the ingredients above, working to combine without all the chopped bits of veggies going all over your counter.  When all is combined nicely, put cover on and cook on medium-high  until everything is soft, or just the way you like it, about 15 minutes or so.  Taste and adjust salt, sugar, curry if you wish.  You want the whole mixture to have enough liquid at in it to combine and soak into the rice if you are adding. If there is too much liquid, leave lid off and let the water cook out. Not enough liquid? Add a little water and a pinch of salt.

Then toss in and combine:

1-2 cups cooked rice, whatever kind you are into (I like Basmati,again, because of my sensitive tummy)
a handful of walnuts
a handful of raisins
a little chopped cilantro if you wish

This dish is a complete vegan meal loaded with fiber, protein and complex carbs.  I served it to the rest of the meat eating family with a side of roast chicken (which soaked up the raisin/curry sauce nicely).

Slurp!