Category Archives: basil

Caramelized Fennel Pizza | Good Ideas

January 31, 2012 –

Some things seem like a good idea at the time, but later turn out to be bad or poorly timed ideas. Take white towels, for example. You admire them in Dwell magazine and scurry off to the store where you purchase a set of four. They are so fluffy and perfect they nearly gleam. You hang them carefully in your bathroom taking care to make perfect folds. The room is instantly transformed and so are you. You leave the room and glance back over your shoulder. Gorgeous. You pat yourself on the back. You are sophisticated and chic.

Two weeks later, it’s a different story. The beautiful white towels are nearly gray. Your resolve to avoid using your towels as a quick method to remove your eye makeup lasted only a few days. Those towels are headed to the rag bin. You curse. It seemed like a good idea but, clearly, it wasn’t.

I could go on here for a bit. Accent walls. Precious house plants. White tiled surfaces.

Sound familiar?

It’s possible I hit a nerve, but there is good news. Some ideas are pretty darn great at the inception and remain so to execution. A dinner of pizza is one of those wonderful ideas. Do we ever tire of a home-baked pizza? Around here, we do not. It’s definitely in our regular rotation and there is good reason for this. After bad idea followed by bad idea in the form of complicated evening meals, I learned a thing or two. My daughter literally clings to my pant legs in the evenings, which makes ingredient-laden, multi-course meals quite a challenge. Pizza dough, however, is something I can throw together in the morning while she naps and have it rise quietly until I am ready to use it.

It’s easy to put together and the ingredients for any decent pizza are so simple it’s nearly criminal to order pizza for delivery. The other great thing about pizza is its utility in using up leftovers. You can throw nearly anything on there and it will taste good. That half of an onion that is just about to turn in the crisper? Throw it on there. The selection of tiny cheese hunks? Use them all. To quote one of my absolute favorite youtube videos, “Put it on the pizza.”

For our Sunday meal, I did just this and, by happenstance, discovered the perfect combination of ingredients. It was simple, but the flavors were savory and delicious. Salty salami and earthy fennel marry perfectly on a thin and crispy crust to make an ideal bite. Top it off with slivers of fresh basil and you have a bright hint of summer in every mouthful.

I’m actually salivating thinking of it now. Is it too much to eat this everyday? Would that be a bad idea? I’m not positive of the answer, but I am quite sure I will be finding out shortly.

Caramelized Fennel Pizza

1/2 batch of pizza dough

1 tblsp. semolina flour

1 medium fennel bulb, sliced thinly

1 and 1/2 tblsp. olive oil

1 cup tomato puree

8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced thinly

3 ounces sliced salami

kosher salt, to taste

1 tablespoon fresh basil, slivered

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper by cutting the paper to fit in the sheet with 1/2 inch of overhang. Douse 1/2 tablespoon of the olive oil on the parchment paper and spread evenly. Sprinkle with the semolina flour.

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium skillet. Add the fennel and cook over medium heat until it is very tender, about 15 minutes.

Take your pizza dough and roll out on a lightly floured surface until thin (1/4 inch) and nearly the size of the baking sheet. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet with parchment paper. Top the dough with the tomato puree by spooning the puree and spreading it evenly over the surface. Next, spread the cheese evenly over the surface. Then, add the caramelized fennel and spread it evenly as well. Top with the salami taking care to distribute the slices equally over the top of the pizza. Sprinkle a pinch of kosher salt over the top.

Place the pizza in the middle of the oven. Cook until the edges are golden, about 10 minutes. When the pizza is just about ready, turn on the broiler to high and cook for just under 1 minute to brown the top of the pizza.

Remove the pizza from the oven and using the parchment paper, transfer it to a safe cutting surface. Top with slivered basil. Cut and serve hot.

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Fresh Herb Meat Marinara | The Staples

April 29, 2011 –

It seems like yesterday I packed up an impressive collection of shoes, more than a couple fake Chanel jackets and several gingerly rolled posters of Pre-Raphaelite redheads. I was headed to college and I didn’t intend on returning home to California at any point during this lifetime. At the time, it didn’t matter whether I liked it here in Seattle or not. It was a city on the west coast and it wasn’t home. A two state buffer zone sounded perfect. I was so thrilled to start my new life I nearly raced off the stage during high school graduation. The only thing that stopped me was a terrible blistered sunburn dotting the back of my legs and four inch platform heels. Both things severely hampered my ability to walk, let alone run anywhere.

All this is really ancient history. However, the feelings of newness and wonder came flooding back to me last weekend as I chatted with my niece. She’s a freshman in college now. It’s truly hard to believe and quite interesting to behold. She’s still youthful, but just beginning to dip her toes into the adult world. Her excitement about her classes, her boyfriend, and her brand new apartment are simply contagious. She talks breathlessly about these subjects for hours on end with the kind of unbridled enthusiasm only a teenager can muster.

I love hearing about it all, but it’s especially fun to hear her talk about cooking for the first time. All signs suggest she is a budding foodie. She’s making curries. She’s cooking scrambled eggs with farm fresh eggs. She’s perfecting her cupcake recipe. And mishaps that would certainly test the patience of any wearied adult do not phase her in the least. She tells me the quiche she made with the graham cracker crust wasn’t half bad. The brownies that failed to set? Of course, they were still edible.

I beam when I hear her discuss these things. My transition into cooking was a bit slower. In the dorms, no longer restricted to my mother’s bulk purchased puffed rice cereal, I feasted on vats of sugared cereals. There was an omelet bar, pizza whenever I wished, and baked goods everywhere. It was heaven until it wasn’t. I gained weight. I felt sluggish. That’s when I realized it was closer to hell.

Once I had my own apartment, I was thrilled to begin cooking. However, I didn’t really know where to begin. I burned a lot things. I undercooked others. I bought processed foods and, for a time, lived on a near exclusive diet of marshmallows and diet coke. I’m not proud of this. If I had to do it again, I might work on the staples. You’ve really got to have a few foolproof recipes in your repertoire. These are the recipes you can whip up from your pantry or a quick trip to the market.

It never occurred to me to write about my basic meat marinara sauce until my conversation with my niece. Everyone needs a starting point and this meat marinara is an adaptable recipe. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. What you need is a basic recipe. Once you have it under your belt, you can explore and get creative. You can adjust the seasoning. You can use different herbs at different times of the year. And, when summer bestows upon you a bounty of garden tomatoes, you can toss them into the mix or even roast them.

I make this recipe for meat marinara often. It’s great when I have little time or energy to do much more. It’s perfect for a budding foodie or a busy mom who wants nothing more than to avoid the jar of tomato sauce at the market.

Enjoy your weekend.

Meat Marinara Sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 shallots, chopped (about 2/3 cup)

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

4 tablespoons fresh herbs, finely chopped (marjoram, rosemary, basil, and oregano)

2 cloves garlic

1 pound lean ground beef

1 teaspoon each (kosher salt, garlic salt, freshly cracked pepper)

1 28 ounce can of diced organic tomatoes*

Pour the olive oil into a large frying pan and heat on medium for about 2 minutes. Add the shallots and red pepper flakes. Cook until the shallots are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and the herbs. Cook for another 2 minutes. Add the meat and break it up into the pan adding the the salt and pepper to it as you break it apart.

Cook the meat over medium heat until browned, turning often. This should take about 7-10 minutes. Add the diced tomatoes and their juices to the pan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

Adjust seasoning to your liking.

Makes 4 healthy portions (perfect for a pound of pasta).

Serve immediately.

* Muir Glen makes a wonderful canned tomato.

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Zucchini & Fresh Basil Pasta | Outdoor Living

July 27, 2010 –

When I am struck with the burning desire to talk about the weather, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a sign of aging. Isn’t that what our grandparents do? Aren’t they the ones who buy those fancy thermometers for their homes so they know the precise temperature inside as well as outside? Or, am I only a few short years from making the same quirky investment?

Well, bear with me for a moment because I simply cannot resist the temptation. The sun is finally out in Seattle and that’s a pretty big deal around here. It’s been a long winter. And, when I refer to winter, I’m talking about a 6 month season that was entirely gloomy and rainy. There was no apparent distinction for springtime. It was the type of year during which I frequently wondered why I ever chose to move away from California.

Knock on wood, if you would. I think it’s all behind us now. The sun is high in the sky and the population around town is nearly double. And, those aren’t tourists. Those are the Seattle residents who were were living like hermits all these months. They are the people you now see strutting around the public lakes and parks with their pasty legs and goofy sandals (mandals). I am proud to be one of them. Indeed, I’m enjoying every minute as I bask in the sunshine with my big belly (under a giant umbrella and completely bathed in sunscreen).

I will tell you honestly, however, I wasn’t always a lover of the sun. In fact, I hated the sun as a child.

HATE.

I assure you, I do not use this term lightly. I mean it. We grew up in the Sunset district of San Francisco where it was never hot due to the ocean air and routine blanket of fog, which not only numbed our senses, but any warm weather systems as well.

As such, I had little tolerance for any significant changes in the weather, especially increases in the temperature. That’s why our summers in Los Angeles with Nana were a bit torturous. The Southern Californian heat was cruel bringing only sticky thighs and more than a smattering of freckles to my pale white skin.

This is not to suggest any ill feelings toward Nana. I loved my grandmother very much. She was an absolute doll with a lovely ranch style home, which abutted a gorgeous and fragrant grove of Eucalyptus trees.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t appreciate any of it. Not even for one minute. I was too hot.

Nana had a fan in every room, which only seemed to recycle the hot air throughout the house. I would lay on my back on the coolest part of the floor, sticking to the floorboards underneath and barely moving like some sort of wounded animal. When it got to be just too much, I would create some sort of water type splashy invention with one of my sisters. Usually this involved a ton of wasted water from the garden house and some type of leftover building material we found in Nana’s shed. One time, in particular, we placed plastic sheeting down on a steep cement ramp and ran the hose over the sheeting to create a sort of poor man’s version of the slip n’ slide. Needless to say, it didn’t work out well. In fact, it’s hard to believe I’m in one piece today after the number of times I hurled my sunburned little body down the steep incline. There was a lot of bruising and scraping and very little slipping and sliding.

The one good thing about summertime in Los Angeles, however, was mealtime. By dusk, the air was cooler and a nice breeze was blowing. We ate out simple meals out on the patio surrounded by the smell of the Eucalyptus trees. Pasta. Salads. Homemade pies with ice cream. That was the good life.

K and I try to carry on this tradition in our more temperate Seattle home today. We eat every meal possible on the patio enjoying the sunshine for its brief and therapeutic appearance. Last night, we ate the pasta meal that I share with you today. It’s a great dish that really highlights seasonal eating. It’s bursting with fresh basil and zucchini from the garden. And, the lemon adds just enough zing to really compliment the seasonal vegetables.

I think you’ll enjoy it a lot. I hope you can slow down, enjoy the sunshine, and bask in simple food out on your patio. Life (and summer) are too short not to enjoy these pleasures.

Zucchini & Fresh Basil Pasta

2 medium organic zucchini
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 cups packed fresh organic basil leaves, shredded
1 pound farfalle, bowtie pasta
1 and 1/2 tblsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup finely grated fresh parmesan cheese, plus additional for serving
2 tblsp. fresh lemon juice

Quarter the zucchini lengthwise and chop into 1/8-inch-thick slices. Toss on a plate with the sea salt and let sit for 10-15 minutes until the zucchini sweat. Pat zucchini dry.

Bring a 6-quart pasta pot three fourths full with salted water to a boil. Cook pasta in boiling water until al dente and ladle out and reserve 1/2 cup pasta cooking water. Drain pasta in colander.

Heat the olive oil in a large wok type pan over moderately high heat until hot. Sauté zucchini, stirring occasionally, until golden but still a bit crisp, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low and stir in basil. Stir in pasta and 1/2 cup reserved pasta water and gently toss. Stir in cheese, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve pasta with additional cheese.

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