Food I'm Eating: Fast, Easy, Adaptable Six-ingredient Pasta

If you're tired of your own cooking and looking for something super easy to make for lunch or dinner, here's a recipe I like because it's tasty, easy, and fast--you can prepare it in the time it takes the pasta to boil. Only six ingredients are required, but you can make additions and substitutions.

Ingredients: 

1. Black olives (fresh, pitted--not those horrid little black tires they put on pizza at the big pizza chains)

2. Capers 

3. Anchovies (the kind in the jar, not a can (although those work in a pinch): I like the Agostina Recca brand)

4. Fresh garlic 

5. Chili flakes (I like chipotle flakes) 

6. Fresh parmesan cheese (shaved, not the powdered Kraft stuff) 

7. (Optional): Baby spinach, snow peas, other greens

Directions: 

Boil water for pasta. While waiting for the water, chop the olives, capers, anchovies, and garlic finely but not too finely. Set aside.

When water is boiling, add the pasta. If you normally salt your pasta water, in this case don't: the olives, capers, cheese, and anchovies provide plenty of saltiness.

In a large skillet, heat a little olive oil and butter. When the butter is melted, add the olives, anchovies, capers, and chili flakes. Stir. Reserve the garlic and parmesan cheese. Turn down the heat.

About four minutes before the pasta will be ready, make a space in the skillet for the garlic, turn up the heat again (medium-high) and add the garlic and more butter so that the garlic sautés in the butter. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Turn down heat if necessary after the garlic takes a little color, which should be just before the pasta is ready. If you add greens, put these in along with the garlic so that they're just cooked as the pasta finishes.

When pasta is ready, drain and add to the pan with the other ingredients. Turn off the heat and mix well. Last, add the Parmesan cheese. The residual heat will melt it. Serve immediately!

I like to make this with baby spinach, which adds some nice color. If you're a vegetarian, you can omit the anchovies. If you don't like spicy foods, omit the chili flakes. If you like things spicier, this works well with fresh minced jalapeño or Fresno peppers (or hotter varieties, if you like). The photo here shows it with snow pea pods instead of spinach. Dinner last night. :)

Foods I'm Eating: 2019-2020 Season Homemade Olives

Just about 100 days ago (November 10, 2019) I started a batch of olives curing. Yesterday I was finally able to bottle them. These took much longer than any I've made in the past, but, by going through my own posts here about olive-making, I see that I started these much earlier than any I've done in the past. Presumably, the riper the fruit, the faster they cure. In the past, it's taken six to eight weeks for the olives to finish curing, but using olives harvested as late as mid-February—that is, harvested right about now.

Anyway, after more than three months, we have fresh homemade olives again. As in the past, I've done them up with rosemary, a bay leaf, a quarter lemon, and garlic. I like to put them in a shallow dish to soak a little in olive oil with more garlic, lemon, and rosemary before eating them, too. Delicious.

Food I'm Eating: Warm Olive and Marcona Almond Salad with Mozzarella

The version shared with me says "Best eaten informally standing in the kitchen before dinner is served, or sitting around a coffee table. It is particularly good with chilled Champagne or rich, dry sherry, like Oloroso or Palo Cortado. It's most successfully enjoyed served without plates or silverware in a big flat serving platter, right from the pan." It also admonishes "No silverware!" The idea was to use the bread (see below) to pick up the food with and to encourage conversation at the start of a party, but many at the gathering I attended found it easier to use a utensil--namely a fork. I will share the proper attribution for this recipe as soon as I can track it down. I record the recipe here because, if I don't, I'll lose it.

Ingredients:

1 cup canola oil
½ cup peeled garlic cloves
1 garlic bulb, cut in half
1 fresh serrano chile cut in half lengthwise
2 pints assorted PITTED olives--a variety of colors and flavors recommended
1½ cups Marcona almonds or whole blanched skinless almonds
2 small jars marinated artichoke hearts with their oil
1 tbsp. good red wine vinegar
8 oz small-size fresh mozzarella cheese, drained, at room temperature, Or larger mozzarella cut into smaller pieces.
4 oz. Manchego cheese, cut into ½-inch cubes
4 oz. Gruyere, or any other similarly textured cheese, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 basket cherry tomatoes
1 head Belgian endive, leaves separated, then cut in half
Black pepper
1  cup whole parsley leaves
1 cup basil leaves, torn
Zest of one lemon

Preparation:

In a small saucepan, sauté the peeled garlic cloves in the canola oil until golden brown, stirring often--about 5 minutes. Remove the cloves and transfer them to a paper towel. Reserve the garlic oil.

Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add three Tbsp. of the garlic oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Place the garlic cut sides of the garlic bulb down into the pan and sear for three to four minutes, add the chile halves and continue to sauté until the chiles are brown, being careful not to burn them.

Add the olives and almonds and continue to sauté until hot all the way through--three to four minutes more--tossing often.

Add the cherry tomatoes, the artichoke hearts and all of their oil and cook for another minute or two, stirring or tossing continuously until the tomatoes are warmed through and beginning to swell. Add the vinegar and lemon zest and stir well.

Add the hard cheeses and continue to toss until they begin to melt.

Remove from the heat and add the mozzarella balls all at once. Stirring or tossing well. Stir in the parsley, basil, and endive leaves and season with pepper.

Turn out the salad into a large serving platter and serve immediately with rustic bread, cut into thick chunks. Serves 8-10.

Food I'm Eating: Fresh Pesto (April 27, 2012)

Nothing beats fresh pesto. Just basil, garlic, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese, ground coarsely with olive oil--add more olive oil and salt to taste at the table. It'll be even better in a month or two, when I can make it from fresh basil grown in the garden. Great with a flavorful but delicate Italian white wine like Gavi or Soave, or Roero Arneis, a good Verdicchio, or so many others....

Places I'm Visiting: Farmers' Market, Santa Rosa

I went to the Santa Rosa Farmers' Market this weekend in search of good tomatoes, but I was mostly disappointed. There weren't a lot, and it was mostly hothouse tomatoes on offer. It's still a little too early in the season, I guess. There was much else to see. I picked up some fresh garlic from a stand that was offering five or six different kinds. I chatted with the beekeepers. I nodded hello to the man that sells oysters, although I didn't order any today--not sure exactly why. I listened to the traditional jazz band that was playing. I admired a woman's lilies and noticed that the older woman who sells jams and jellies from Southern recipes was looking a little frail. I hope she is well. I love her pepper jelly and her tomato jelly--although they last me so long that I don't buy either as often as I wish I could. I hadn't been to the market in a long time, but it was a pleasant way to start the day. As tomato season approaches, I'll be going more often in the coming weeks.

Food I'm Eating: The Olive Project--Herbed Olives

It's been a couple of months since I tried brining olives at home for the first time. It went well and was easy enough that I was inspired to lay down more olives today--about 2,000 more. Our tree is still heavy with fruit even after today's harvest, and the original supply of finished olives is already dwindling.

The fruit is noticeably bigger now. I guess the olives are that much riper than they were back in January. In the meantime, I've been experimenting with different ways to eat the olives I've already made. Tonight I added olive oil, rosemary, raw garlic, and Meyer lemon zest to a bowl of finished olives, and they are very tasty indeed.

My original post on the subject of making olives at home is here: The Olive Project. Also see The Olive Project Continued.