Lunch Box Safety

Classes started last week and that means two things for me. Firstly, I will be missing my daily dose of The Chew.  Secondly, I've got to pack my lunch.  I could purchase lunch, but that's a little expensive and a few more calories than I need to consume. 

Packing a lunch is an excellent idea for those trying to save money and consume a healthier diet.  However, carrying lunch to work or school may mean it will not be refrigerated.  When you pack a lunch, consider food safety.  It may not be a glamorous topic, but neither is a foodborne illness.

Here are a few tips to help you consume a safe lunch.

• Purchase an insulated lunch bag.  These bags are better for keeping food safe until it is consumed.  Remember, cold cut sandwiches and yogurt can only be left at room temperature for 2 hours. 
• Reusable bags should be washed with warm soapy water after each use.
• Wash hands and any food contact surface before you prepare the lunch.  Also make sure to wash your hands before eating.  If you can't wash your hands before lunch, pack a moist towelette.
• Freeze a juice box or an ice pack.  This will help keep your lunch cold and by lunchtime, you should be able to drink the juice.
• If you are packing hot foods, such as soup, use an insulated bottle like a thermos.
• When in doubt, throw it out.  If all the food is not consumed, toss it.  Better safe than sorry.

For resources on purchasing lunch boxes, check out these sites.
Laptop Lunches
Fit and Fresh

Hope you have a safe and nutritous lunch.  Check in next week when I will be talking about my lunch box favorite.

What I Did This Weekend - Baked!

Okay, so it doesn't surprise you that I baked this past weekend.  It was just one of those weekends.  And I needed to bake, not cook, but bake.  It's just something about baking that seems to release a different set of creative juices. 

I decided to make a plum upside-down cake.  The picture just looked sooooooooo good!  Once I got into baking it, I thought, "this is a version of a pineapple upside down cake".  A chef friend of mine says there are only so many recipes.  I guess she's right.

But whatever it is, this cake is a nice change of pace from the traditional pineapple upside cake.  If you don't want to use plums, apricots or peaches would be a nice substitution.

Plum Upside-Down Cake

Serves 8.

Ingredients:

Plum mixture:
12 Tablespoons (1½ sticks) butter, divided
¾ cup brown sugar, packed
1 Tablespoon honey
4 to 6 large plums

Cake:
1½ cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup sugar
2 large eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract
½ cup milk

whipping cream or ice cream, optional

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350°F.
2.  Melt butter in a small saucepan.  Stir in  brown sugar and honey.  Heat until sugar and honey blend in, forming a thick, smooth sauce.  Transfer to a 9-inch round cake pan with 2-inch high sides. 
3.  Cut plums in half; remove pit.  Cut in half into sixths.  Arrange plums on top of sauce in overlapping concentric circles.  Set aside.
4.  Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl.  Using electric mixer, beat remaining 6 tablespoons butter in a medium bowl until light.  Add sugar and beat until creamy.  Add eggs, one at a time.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Beat in extracts.  Add dry ingredients, alternately with the milk, beating until just blended.  Spoon batter evenly over plums.  Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour.  Transfer to a cooling rack; cool in pan for 30 minutes.
5.  Using a knife, cut around pan sides to loosen cake.  Insert cake onto serving platter.  Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Clafoutis Anyone?

A few days ago, a colleague and I were discussing recipes for another project that I am working on.  She suggested that I might do a clafouti recipe.  I decided that it might not be a good choice for the other project, but it might be a good blog topic.  After all, it is a French dessert and we (or rather PBS) are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Julia Child's birth.

I must admit that I do not have any fun childhood memories of Julia Child.  My mother and I did not cook her recipes together.  However, with my job of helping people develop food preparation skills, I have come to admire and respect Julia Child.  She had great love of food and inspired Americans to become better cooks.  While Julia may have used her share of butter, she died 2 days before her 92nd birthday and was not overweight.  As Julia used to say, 'all things in moderation, including moderation'.  While I am all for healthy eating, I am also for good eating and I do not not believe these are mutually exclusive terms.  It is with that in mind that I am writing about clafouti and Julia Child.

Clafouti also makes excellent use of summer fruits, such as peaches, plums, and cherries.  I've even seen recipes with raspberries, apples and pears.  I've had my student make it with pears and did not care for it.  It needed a fruit with more intense flavor.  However, if you have nice, flavorful pears, why not give it a try. 

Apparently, the clafouti is a French country dessert from the Loire region of France.  I think of it as fruit baked in a custard. It was originally made with cherries.  I also understand that the pits add extra flavor.  I can't say that I have ever left the pits in.  I'm just not that brave.

I have seen tons of recipes for clafouti, with varying levels of milkfat.  Because I like a soft custard, I decided to use a combination of half and half and whole milk.  To satisfy more of my 'foodie' colleagues, I made half plums and half peaches.  This is my version of clafouti. 

Clafouti

Serves 6 to 8.

Ingredients:
¼ cup, plus 1 Tablespoon sugar
¾ pound fruit, such as peaches, plums or cherries
¾ cup whole milk
¾ cup half and half
¾ cup all purpose flour
3 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoon almond liqueur, optional

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350°F.  Butter a pie plate.  Sprinkle with one tablespoon sugar. 
2.  Slice fruit.  Place over sugar in a pleasing design.
3.  In a blender, blend milk, half and half, flour, eggs and salt.  Blend until smooth.  Add the one-fourth cup of sugar, vanilla and almond liqueur.  Pour over fruit.  Bake at 350°F for about 30 minutes or until puffed and golden.
4.  Dust clafouti with powdered sugar and serve at once.

Normally, I would not use liqueur, however since we are celebrating Julia Child, I felt a little alcohol would be appropriate.  If you are celebrating Julia Child, let us know what you are doing.

Crostinis, Crostinis, Crostinis!

Up until a couple of years ago I had never heard of crostinis.  And now they are everywhere.  It seems that any and everything is a crostini, such as eggplants, tomatoes, sardines. 

According to The Prentice Hall Dictionary of Culinary Arts, crostini is Italian for 'little toasts' and is used to describe small, thin slices of toasted bread, usually brushed with olive oil.  Who knew!

Sicily was overflowing with crostinis.  And why not?  If you have leftover bread, why not use it to make something edible - think bread pudding.  For centuries clever cooks have turned the 'not so edible' into the 'this is delicious'. 

One crostini that we consumed while in Sicily was made with eggplants and chopped tomatoes.  Both of these plants grow extremely well in the Mediterranean.  And cooks make good use of them. 

Here is my version of Crostinis with Aubergine Tapenade.  I hope you enjoy them.  Some countries refer to eggplants as aubergines.

Crostinis with Aubergine Tapenade

Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 Roma tomatoes
Day old baguette

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350°F.  With a sharp knife, pierce eggplant in several places.  Place on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until soft, about 1 hour. 

2.  Allow eggplant to cool.  Remove the skin and stem.  Cut eggplant into small pieces.  Add garlic, oregano, salt and pepper.  Set aside.

3.  Thinly slice the bread, on the diagonal, into
about ½-inch thick slices.  Brush with olive oil and place on a sheet pan.  Place in the oven at 350°F, until they are crisp, about 15 minutes. 

4.  Dice the tomatoes into small pieces, about ¼ inch.  Combine with eggplant mixture. 

5.  At this point, you can top the bread with the eggplant tapenade or set them out separately and allow your guest to top the bread as they desire.

As to which one I would do, it depends on how much time I have.

Eating Potatoes in Sicily

While in Sicily, we had the pleasure of attending the Cucina del Sole Cooking School.  The school is headed up by Eleonora Consoli, a gastronomy journalist. Needless to say, we had a good time.  Put 20+ foodies in the room together (with food, of course) and they have a good time.


It was really a lot of fun learning about Sicilian cuisine.  It's always fun to expand your cooking repertoire.  I came back with a few good recipes that could easily find their way into my own cooking. 

One of the first dishes we made in Sicily was a potato and pistachio casserole.  As it turns out, Sicily grows pistachios.  So they make good use of them in their cuisine.  Most pistachios are grown around the Mount Etna and Bronte areas.  Most pistachios grown in Sicily are consumed in Sicily.  Very little is exported.  Although widely viewed as a snack food, pistachios are well-suited for many recipes requiring nuts.  The next time you have a recipe calling for pine nuts, give pistachios a try and see how you like them.

Potato and Pistachio Casserole

Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1½ pounds baking potatoes, such as Russet or Yukon Gold
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tablespoons butter, plus additonal for coating the dish
Pinch of nutmeg
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 large eggs

½ cup pistachios, finely chopped, divided

Directions:
1.  Peel  and coarsely chop the potatoes.  Place in a medium saucepan and cover with water.  Cook until potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork.  Drain.  Place on heat to dry potatoes.  There should be a film on the bottom of the pan. 

2.  Mash potatoes.  Add cheese and butter, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.  Stir to combine.  Add eggs once potatoes are cool enough.

3.  Coat a casserole dish with butter.  Add pistachios and coat the dish.  Pour out extra pistachios and reserve for topping.

4.  Place potato mixture in casserole. Top with pistachios.  Bake at 350°F for about 30 to 40 minutes.

According to Ms. Consoli, one can put other ingredients in the middle of this casserole. Some of her suggestions were artichokes, spinach, asparagus, eggplant, zucchini, cheese, mushrooms, and hard boiled eggs.  For my version, I added grated zucchini in the middle of the casserole.

Simplicity

Oftentimes, I struggle to get my students to understand that there is nothing wrong with simplicity.  Simplicity can be a beautiful thing.  That is no more true than with fresh summer produce.  Good, fresh food needs little adornment. Sometimes all you need to do is wash, cut and eat.  To borrow a phrase from Ina Garten, "How easy is that".

When I think of simplicity and summer foods, I think of a tomato sandwich.  Yes, a tomato sandwich.  This must be a Southern thing, because my Midwestern friends look at me like I'm nuts.  If the idea of a tomato sandwich seems a little odd to you, think of it as a BLT without the B and the L.

Here is how you get started with a tomato sandwich.  First of all, you need good quality bread. You need a sturdy bread to soak up all those tomato juices.  I used challah.  You also need good tomatoes.  This is when you get out of bed in time to hit your local farmers market or your garden.  I like mayonnaise on mine, maybe with the addition of garlic.  If you really want to get fancy, top it with a little of your favorite cheese, such as Parmesan, sharp cheddar, or a fresh goat cheese.  You can also add chopped basil, capers or a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.  Those additions sound really great.  But I am going to stick with my simple version.

Food from Sicily

Recently, I told you that I would share some recipes from Sicily with you.  Here is the first of those recipes - Panelle or chickpea fritters.  Before traveling to Sicily, I had never heard of panelle or chickpea fritters.  We had them on at three different occasions over the course of 14 days.  They were served mostly as an appetizer or snack.

Since returning to the states, I have learned that panelle is served as a sandwich, Pane e Panelle.  It is especially popular in Palermo, Sicily.  My understanding is that panelle is found in Sicily due toArab influence.  The Arabs ruled Sicily at one time.

Basically, panelle is chickpea flour, water, salt and sometimes, herbs such as parsley.  This mixture is cooked to hydrate the beans.  It is then spread onto a flat surface, allowed to cool and cut into serving size pieces.

Here is my version of panelle.

Panelle (Chickpea Fritters)

Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1¼ cups chickpea flour
3 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup chopped parsley

Directions:
1.  Combine chickpea flour, water, and salt.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly.  Add parsley when mixture begins to thicken.  When mixture has absorbed all the water and is pulling away from the side of pan, quickly spread onto a jelly roll pan or cookie  sheet.  Cover with plastic and allow to cool.

2.  Preheat oil to 375°F.  Cut panelle into 1 X 2-inch strips.  Drop several into oil and fry until golden brown.  Drain on a paper towel lined cooling rack.  Serve immediately.

Note:  The chickpea flour mixture can be cooked through the first step and refrigerated for one day.