Savory Sundays #5: Bastardized insalata caprese and meatloaf patties

I generally dislike Rachel Ray.  She’s so damned chipper, like a rabid chipmunk.  However, I used to watch 30 Minute Meals when I was in college.  At that time, I was just starting to really get into the nitty gritty of cooking and had pretty much stopped using mixes.  I was reading cookbooks and food literature like it was all going to be burned tomorrow and Food Network was a primary source of inspiration even if not of accurate information.  Let’s face it, FoodTV can be about as informative as the History channel is these days.  And Rachel Ray’s ideas, recipes and information are definitely not often things I’d actually want to eat.  I watched her show, however, because I watched ALL of the shows and took methods, techniques, ideas, and recipes in bits and pieces from all of the Food Network chefs to develop the style of cooking that I’ve created over the years. 

I have no memory of the original recipe for these meatloaf patties, and it ends up slightly different every time too because I’ve never written it down.  This is an easy one to be creative with and I think of this as less of a recipe and more as a technique.  You can use almost anything you have lying around the kitchen and it’s almost guaranteed to end up yummy and satisfying.

When I stopped eating beef about a decade ago, one of the few things I actually missed was meatloaf.  Yes, I know it’s terribly uncool, but I have always loved a good meatloaf.  I eventually figured out that I could make it with ground turkey (I was still mostly cooking from boxes and mixes at this time, but definitely learning and experimenting), but it’s time consuming and it makes a lot.  Ray’s meatloaf patties were a perfect solution!  I could make the patties and do all kinds of things with them.  I’ve had them on buns as a sandwich, over pasta, over rice, by themselves – it doesn’t matter, they’re just good.  They can also be part of a very seasonal meal.  This time around, I made them a little bit summery with some pesto, but they’re also excellent with gravy made from the tidbits leftover in the skillet after cooking the patties. 

I served it, this time, with a side of bastardized insalata caprese.  I say it’s bastardized, because typically this dish is served using large slices of tomatoes and mozzarella.  However, the garden gave us a nice harvest of red cherry and yellow pear tomatoes today, so I halved them, and sprinkled some fresh basil over them (The proper cut for basil is called “chiffonade”.  To do this, pluck the leaves off the stems, pile them on top of each other, roll them up like a newspaper and cut into strips crosswise). I took a ball of fresh mozzarella, cut it up into small pieces and put that in the bowl with the tomatoes and basil.  Ideally, I would have used the small “pellets” that come in a container of water, but Safeway doesn’t seem to carry those, so I had to use a ball this time.  Whatever you have, doesn’t matter what shape it comes in.  Anyway, I like to put just a little salt and pepper over it all, and then drizzle with olive oil and vinegar.  I’ve used red balsamic, white balsamic, Italian herb infused and sherry vinegars and they’re all good, but my favorite is the sherry vinegar.   At any rate, I did this before I started anything else so that the flavors could mingle while I made the rest of dinner.  DO NOT REFRIGERATE!  Tomatoes lose flavor when refrigerated and cold things don’t meld as well as things at room temperature, so just let the insalata sit on the kitchen table while you work on the rest.

While the tomatoes are marinating, put some water on to boil for egg noodles.

And while the water is getting hot for the noodles, take one package ground turkey and add an egg, herbs and seasonings to taste, a diced onion, a couple of cloves of chopped garlic, a handful of parmesan cheese, and about 2/3 of a cup of bread crumbs (if you’re gluten free, Bob’s Redmill makes some excellent gluten free breadcrumbs that have a nice light nutty flavor to them). 

*Random rant: This shit needs to be mixed up.  Sure, you can dirty a spoon, but why?  Don’t be afraid to be hands-on with your food!  Dive right in there; squish it up with your hand!  Especially if you’re a very tactile person; my hands seem to be much better at telling me when something is properly mixed than my eyes are.  Cooking should be an experience for all of the senses and touch is definitely an important one.  Experience teaches your hands to tell you when something is wrong that your eyes may not catch (like a slimy texture where there shouldn’t be, for example).  Also, there’s just no need to dirty a spoon if you don’t have to, and since you’re going to be forming the patties anyway, you’re still going to be getting your hands in it.  No sense in holding back – your hands are two of the best mixing tools you have and, miraculously enough, they are washable!  End rant.

Squish the contents of your bowl together. 

Add about a tablespoon or two of olive oil to a skillet and get it nice and hot on medium-high heat.  Form the turkey mixture into large meatballs about an inch and a half in diameter, then flatten to form patties and put in the hot pan.  Cook about 12 minutes on each side until nicely browned and cooked all the way through.  I put a baking rack on a plate and put the finished ones on there while I cook the rest.  Don’t forget to throw your noodles in the water when it gets to boiling. You can use whatever kind of noodles you like – I like to use whole wheat egg noodles.

When the noodles are done, drain them and mix about a quarter to a half of a cup of pesto in with them (if using half a bag of noodles, a quarter, or up to a half cup for a full bag of noodles).  Put a pile of pesto’d noodles on a plate, then put a couple of your medallions on top.  From here, you can do several things.

You could throw some stir fried vegetables in with the pasta before you pesto, or pile them on top of the pasta with your patties. I sautéed mushrooms in butter and olive oil and piled them on my pasta with my patties.  I also put a little more pesto over the top of my patties, and sprinkled just a little more parmesan on the top of the whole mess. 

A seasonal variation:  These are excellent with gravy as well, especially in the winter.  Make as above, leaving out all pesto-related steps.  Instead, wait until the patties are cooked, add two tablespoons of butter to the pan.  Once melted, add two tablespoons of flour and mix to make a roux.  Allow to brown very slightly, then slowly add about 1 ½ cups stock and let it come to a slow boil while stirring constantly and making sure to scrape all the little turkey and seasoning bits from the pan into your sauce.  When sufficiently thickened (when it thickly coats the back of a spoon), take it off the heat and ladle it over your patties and noodles (or rice or quinoa or even mashed potatoes!).  Serve with roasted root vegetables on the side or incorporated into the main dish and enjoy!

Savory Sundays #4: Zucchini-Cheddar Bread

Like most families who plant zucchini in the summer garden, my family always had way too much of this particular vegetable. My mother did terrible things to it like freezing and boiling it that basically reduced this mild and versatile member of the squash family into a bowl of watery mush.  It was horrid, but for many years, I was unaware the zucchini did not have to be so… slimy.  I swore I’d never touch the stuff as an adult, but like most things kids say they’ll never do as adults, we’re now growing our own zucchini.  And yes, we have too much.

A couple of weeks ago, we went on vacation for five days and when we came back, we had a zucchini the size of a small boat lazily resting on the garden bed.  Of course, my first thought was “zucchini bread!” 

There are probably as many zucchini bread recipes out there are people who make zucchini bread.  Most seem to take the form of a quick batter bread, and many sweet and spiced.  Zucchini is a wonderful ingredient in bread because of the moisture and mild flavor it contributes and at about a cup of shredded zucchini per loaf, you can get a couple of loaves out of mid-sized zukes.  The behemoth we pulled out of our garden was big enough that I’ve made three loaves out of it, and have enough left for two or three more.  This baby was huge, and the bigger they are, the better they are for things like breads and pancakes (smaller, baby zukes are better for sautéing and salads because they have more flavor).

Anyway, my favorite zucchini bread recipe is savory, cheesy and almost biscuit-like.  The original recipe comes from The Joy of Cooking, but I’ve tinkered with it just a little.  Don’t have it?  You should.

Zucchini Cheddar Bread

Preheat oven to 375F and grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan.

Whisk together in a large bowl:

2 C all-purpose flour

½ C  Bob’s Red Mill 10 Grain Flour

½ C White whole wheat flour

4 Tsp Baking powder

½ Tsp Baking soda

Add and toss to separate and coat with flour:

1 C Zucchini, shredded

¾ C Sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

¼ C Leeks, chopped

1 ½ Tsp Thyme, dried

Whisk together in a smaller bowl:

2 Large eggs

1 C Buttermilk

4 Tbl Butter, melted

Add egg mixture to the flour mixture and mix with a few light strokes, just until the dry ingredients are moistened.  The batter should not be smooth.  Bake about 55-60 minutes.

This bread goes fabulously with a bowl of soup, as toast with a little butter on it for breakfast, or just plain by itself.  It’s flavorful, cheesy and moist and one of my absolute favorite summer breads.

Savory Sundays #3: Late Summer Turkey Soup

My favorite way of learning a technique or a type of dish is repetition.  My first winter in Seattle, I wanted soup constantly; the weather just screamed “Soup Day!” and who was I to say no?  I lived with five guys at the time and though many things in that house left much to be desired, I will say that they all played nice while I decided to perfect my soup making.  They got a little crabby after almost a month on a mostly liquid diet (for which I can’t really blame them), but I did get really good at making soup.  I love being able to whip up a soup out of just about anything I happen to have on hand and know that it’s going to come out tasty.  This soup was no exception.  In fact, this is one of the best soups I've ever made.

I started with a couple of small onions from the garden.  I diced them up small and put them in the pot with about four tablespoons of butter. 

Rummaging around in the fridge, I found some wonderful German fingerling potatoes from the farmers market, and some carrots that needed to be used up.  I chopped them up in about half-inch sized pieces. When the onions had turned translucent in the pot, I threw the potatoes and carrots in with them.

When the carrots got bright, I stirred in about a quarter of a cup of while whole wheat flour, mixing until the vegetables were evenly coated with butter and flour.

Letting that sautée for a minute, I prepared six cups of stock and added it to the vegetables slowing, making sure the flour mixed in thoroughly as I went to avoid lumps.

To this, I added two whole sprigs each of rosemary and thyme (sticks and all), and about three-quarter teaspoons each of celery seed, garlic powder and onion powder, as well as a sprinkle of garlic salt and some fresh ground five pepper blend, a couple of dried red chilies, a couple of cloves of garlic and a couple of bay leaves.  I also had some leftover turkey breast in the freezer from one that I roasted last month, so I tossed that into the pot too.  

The turkey was still frozen when I put it in the pot, but after about 25 minutes, it was thawed, so I pulled it out, shredded it and threw it back into the pot.  At this time, I also pulled out my now bare herb stems and bay leaves.  The soup was basically done, so I re-seasoned. 

Re-seasoning is, to my mind, one of the most important steps in building an excellent soup.  It creates a soup with layers of flavors and adds nice color to the soup (green floaties in amongst the orange and white).  So at this time, I added another sprig each of rosemary and thyme (without the sticks this time), another grind of pepper, and some fresh, whole leaf oregano.  And, for good measure and a little creaminess (and because I had some), at the very end, I added ½ cup of buttermilk.

This is an excellent, full-bodied, flavorful soup, excellent for those late summer/early fall days that call for a little home cooking.  Goes excellently with next week's Sunday savory, Zucchini Cheddar Bread.

Savory Sundays #2: Blackberry Cobbler

I don't know what possessed me to try to start blogging in earnest two weeks before moving house, right as summer was coming upon us, but I failed miserably. I really did try hard to come back at first, scheduling a major cooking marathon for myself one week before moving and a few times even doing the cooking, taking the pictures and just never getting to the point of sitting down and writing the associated blog. Unfortunately, and I knew this, the writing should be done the same day as the cooking, otherwise important things may be forgotten in the telling.

At any rate, the end of summer is upon us and with it, of course, comes blackberry season. We now have, since our move, twenty-six acres of woodland (designated as a city park) across the street from us, complete with brambling blackberries just begging for a trip to my kitchen. We picked about ten pounds of blackberries over a couple of days between the park and another spot we found a little further around the corner. Most of that went into a pot with some honey for jam and a few made it to the freezer, but no way, no how, can ten pounds of black berries be picked without a blackberry cobbler appearing.

I was eleven years old the first time I ate a blackberry. Blackberries don’t grow in New England like they do in the Pacific Northwest; until my family moved west, I had grown up eating wild blueberries and raspberries. However, we arrived in Oregon at the end of July, right as blackberry season was really picking up some speed. It didn’t take us long to learn to look forward to the summer blackberry harvest because of all the wonderful things that could be done with them.

When I was in high school, it became my job to pick the blackberries to fulfill orders at the family farm. I would have to get up early on school-less summer days, cover up from head to foot to protect myself against the thorns, and get over to the farm to get the berries picked before the mercury got too high. No easy feat in a place that can be as hot as 90 degrees at nine in the morning. As much as I loved eating these berries as a kid, I utterly loathed picking them.

But now I’m an adult and it’s all on my terms, which makes the whole process much more appealing. Up here in Seattle, blackberry season seems to come in mid-August and, if we’re lucky and it doesn’t start raining, goes well into September. We’ve noticed the berries picking up some speed, so Jami and I went picking and managed to get about five pounds of berries in about an hour. Of course, a cobbler was necessary.

This recipe, like so many of my recipes, originates in The Joy of Cooking; it is an adaptation of their recipe for blueberry cobbler.

Blackberry Cobbler

Preheat oven to 375F.

In an ungreased 2qt casserole, about two inches deep, mix:

3 pints Blackberries

¼ C White sugar

¼ C Brown sugar

2 Tbl Cornstarch or ¼ C flour

1 Tsp Lemon juice

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

1 C All-purpose flour

1/3 C White whole wheat flour

2 Tbl Sugar

¾ Tsp Baking powder

¼ Tsp Baking soda

½ C Dried unsweetened coconut, flaked

½ C Walnuts, chopped

Add:

5 Tbl Butter, cold.

Here is my favorite trick for making pastries: If you don’t have a pastry cutter, hate the trick with two knives or have arthritic hands that won’t let you break the butter down in the flour, get out your cheese grater. Grate the butter right into the bowl of flour. Stop about half way through to mix, then grate the rest in. So much easier!

Whisk together in a small bowl, then add to the flour mixture:

½ C Sour cream

¼ C Buttermilk or heavy cream

Spread dough over blackberries by dropping small spoonfuls over the top until the berries are mostly covered.

Bake 45-50 minutes, allow to cool for fifteen minutes before serving.

Of course, this would be fantastic with a little vanilla ice cream, or even just with a drizzle of cream over the top.

It tasted wonderful; the coconut and walnuts in the batter combined brilliantly with the sweet-tart of the blackberries for a delicious and unique flavor combination. This could be done with pretty much any seasonal fruit, with any nut or seed combination.

Tune in next week for our first actual savory, Savory Sunday.