Nothing too exciting here, but I thought I'd share my latest cooking adventures--however modest.
On Valentine's Day, Josh and I cooked (err mostly reheated from Whole Foods) an Italian themed meal. We made my new favorite wintertime bruschetta recipe, and I wanted to recommend it. It is adapted from the artisanbreadinfive blog.
-baguette
-1 can of diced San Marzano tomatoes
-fresh basil
-garlic
-kosher salt
-olive oil
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice the baguette and arrange slices on a cast iron skillet. Spray or brush each slice with olive oil. Drain the canned tomatoes over a fine-mesh sieve--leave them for a couple minutes so they are well drained. Rub each slice with a piece of garlic that has been cut open. Or, if your garlic isn't very juicy, use a microplane grater to very lightly dust each slice with a bit of garlic. Add a heaping spoonful of the tomatoes on top of the bread. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Top with chopped basil. Bake for 5 minutes. And that's how you can pretend it's August, when it is really February in Boston.
The key was really the San Marzano tomatoes. They make it smell like summertime, even though they come from a can. We used the leftover bread and basil to repeat the appetizer the next night, but with regular (Muir Glenn) canned tomatoes, and decided that it's really worth the extra $2 for the San Marzanos. I discovered them just a couple weeks ago on the strong recommendation of the elderly proprietor of a specialty food store in my neighborhood, who insisted that they are what makes the pizzas at my favorite gourmet pizza spot taste so good.
I just pulled the Chocolate Chip-Banana bread pudding from V-con out of the oven. I haven't tasted it yet though. I had a minor disaster with the nutmeg though (didn't realize there was no top on the spice and accidently dumped it directly over the batter), so we'll see what happened. I thought I scooped most of it out, but the pan still smells suspiciously spicy..
4 comments:
Forgive me for laughing at the nutmeg incident! That often happens to me, and I tell myself that I like spices, even in excess. I fool myself, but not my roommates.
But I'm really curious now to try the San Marzanos tomatoes. Thanks for the tip!
That definitely happened to me with salt when I was salting some carrots - luckily, not cooked and I was able to rinse almost all of them off. That does look like a really good recipe! Let us know how the banana bread turns out. :)
I've never tried San Marzanos, thanks for the suggestion! I hope they're available in the midwest, which I see the rest of you have deserted.
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