Pizza Pasta

aka Friday Fettuccini

Some days are meant to be enjoyed as “do nothing, goof off, read a book and grab another cuppa” kind of days. Last Friday was one of those days… or maybe I was just too lazy. Whatever the reason, I did loaf about and read for most of the day, snacked on fruit and cheese for lunch, and ignored dinner prep until the very last minute. I had planned to make pizza, but that sounded like too much trouble; homemade dough would take too long, the oven would really heat up the boat on an already warm day… or maybe I was just too lazy.

Pizza Pasta came to the rescue, utilizing some already-cooked fettuccini and the usual sausage, tomato, black olives, fresh herbs and cheese pizza toppings already on hand. This dish was dee-licious, even better than pizza, and so tasty that RL insisted I record the recipe immediately, before I forgot ingredients and quantities. 

I won, this was a day when being lazy was a good thing.   

Friday Fettuccini 

Serves 2

2 TBS olive oil

1 soft chorizo (I used a 10" link from a Vancouver Island supplier)

4 slices cotto salami

3 large cloves garlic, peeled & smashed

1 TBS capers

3 green onions, sliced into rings

1 tsp dried basil

1 dozen cherry tomatoes, halved

¼ cup black olives, sliced

2 TBS lemon juice

handful fresh Italian parsley, rough chopped

handful fresh basil, julienned

freshly grated Parmesan at finish

grated lemon zest, optional

handful of fettuccini, enough for two servings, cooked until just tender

1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove the chorizo from its casing and crumble into the skillet; cook until it releases some fat and is no longer pink, but definitely not until crispy.
2. Add the salami and garlic to the pan; cook for a minute or two until fragrant.
3. Reduce the heat to medium and add the capers, green onions, dried basil, cherry tomatoes, black olives and lemon juice. Stir or toss to mix, cover the skillet and cook for several minutes to soften the tomatoes and heat through.
4. Add two servings of cooked fettuccini plus several tablespoons of pasta water and toss to coat all strands with the olive oil sauce. (If using precooked pasta from the refrigerator like I did today, cover and cook a few minutes longer to warm the fettuccini. Add additional olive oil as needed to loosen the sauce.) Add the fresh parsley and basil to the pan and toss again.
5. Serve in individual pasta bowls, twisting the strands into mounded nests, spooning the meaty sauce over the pasta. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan and lemon zest if using.

Bread and Butter Pickles, Quick & Easy

I leave pickle prep to the pros, to friends who excel at this tricky endeavor or turn to commercial brands that we like. Not so with pickled carrots, pickled asparagus, dilled beans, pickled peppers, even pickled eggs - they don’t count. Those are all easy, forgiving items that are hard to mess up, unlike real pickles made from cucumbers where it’s all about the crunch and the flavor that comes from sitting around for weeks or months… plus a little magic I think.

Life changed when I found Quick Pickles: easy recipes with bigflavor by Schlesinger, Willoughby and George. Their recommended pre-salting technique all but guarantees the requisite crunch, and the flavor of my very first batch of Bread-and-Butter Pickles convinced me that these three fellows are indeed Pickle Wizards.

The boat galley was short a few ingredients for the first try, turmeric for example, so I used a packaged pickling spice blend and added a mild yellow curry as a substitute for the turmeric. The resulting pickles were such a hit that this first small batch disappeared in less than a day. The three-step recipe is easy peasy:

1. Salt some sliced cukes and onions and chill for an hour or two.  
2. Prepare the brine on stovetop or in the microwave.
3. Pour the hot brine over the drained and rinsed pickles and let sit until cooled to room temperature.

That’s it, 1-2-3, pickle magic. It's just that easy.
  

Quick Bread and Butter Pickles 

(the test batch)

 Adapted from “Your Classic Bread-and-Butter Pickles”, in Quick Pickles by Schlesinger, Willoughby and George, 2001

6 small pickling cucumbers (less than 5 inches long)

1 medium Walla Walla sweet onion

1 tablespoon kosher or other coarse salt

2 tablespoons pickling spice

1 teaspoon curry powder (I used garam masala)

1 cup cider vinegar

3/4 cup brown sugar

Trim both ends of the cucumbers, peel the onion and cut both into ¾ inch rounds. Add the cukes and onions to a glass jar or non-reactive bowl; toss them with the salt, cover and hold in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours. Drain, rinse well and drain again, then set aside.

Combine the remaining ingredients in a microwaveable container and bring to a boil. Remove to stir and dissolve the brown sugar. Reheat to return to a boil, and then pour the liquid over the cucumbers and onions. The cucumbers should be covered or slightly afloat, if not add more heated vinegar and brown sugar using the same proportions.

Allow to cool to room temperature; then cover and refrigerate. Sample a few as soon as they are cool, but the authors note that the flavor will deepen if you let them sit overnight. (We couldn’t wait and consumed them all before 24 hours passed.) The book promises they will keep, covered and refrigerated, for a month or more. Betcha can't eat just one. (grin)