Zucchini Parmesan

We're big on Italian-American comfort food at our house. Joe grew up in a traditional Italian-American family in New Jersey, and I'm from Pittsburgh, so this is familiar territory for us. (My standard is the version they make at Minutello's in Shadyside.) We picked up some fresh, in-season zucchini at the Fair Food Farmstand and decided to forgo the traditional Fourth of July grill-fest.

Zucchini parm is a relatively simple dish, but there are a few stages involved in its making, so it can be a little time-consuming.

First: get yourself some good, fresh zucchini. Ideally, it'll be from your backyard, but if you're like us and don't have a backyard, the local farmer's market will do. Three or four small ones will be plenty.

Next: Slice it lengthwise, as thin as you can get it. We used a mandoline to do the slicing, which makes things much easier. Make an egg wash in a bowl: two eggs, a splash of water, and some salt and pepper. Then spread some bread crumbs out on a plate-- you can use boxed, but we just threw some leftover bread into the food processor for a minute. Dip the zucchini slices in egg and bread them, then fry them in about 1/4 inch of oil until they are nice and brown.

It's helpful to have two people for this stage-- one breading and one frying. If you're slicing as thin as you can, you'll have a lot of slices to fry!

As you finish frying the slices, let them cool for a few minutes, then put a layer of zukes at the bottom of a casserole pan. Cover the layer with marinara sauce. (Yes, we used a jar-- the organic stuff from Trader Joe's is perfectly fine if you don't have the time to Martha Stewart some from scratch.) You can add a bit of cheese at this point-- parmesan is good; we used Idiazabal. Add another layer of zucchini, top with another layer of sauce. Repeat until you're out of zucchini. Top with sauce and mozzarella cheese.

Put the casserole in a 350-degree oven. It won't need long-- 20 minutes at most, but keep an eye on it. You just want to heat it through and brown the cheese.

Slice and serve hot with a glass of red wine. Good stuff-- tasty, soul-satisfying, and great for vegetarians.

Joe's Spaghetti and Meatballs, with WHEAT!

To celebrate Sarah's return to the wheat world I made a classic that has always been one of her comfort foods. Like most of our cooking, we find using fresh ingredients is the way to go. So, after work I stopped by DiBruno's and picked up some freshly made spaghetti and a nice loaf of fresh ciabatta bread.

For the meatballs:

1 lb ground beef
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 to 3/4 cups of bread crumbs
2 eggs
salt and pepper to taste.

While preparing the meatballs heat a quart or so of red sauce of your choosing. I used to always make my sauce from scratch but in recent years there have been a number of jarred sauces come out that are quite good and preservative free. Last night I used Newman's Own Basil Marinara. Heat to a simmer over medium heat then reduce heat to low.

Finely chop the garlic or put through a garlic press. Add to the meat in a large bowl. Add half of the breadcrumbs and one egg. For the bread crumbs I cut up chunks of the ciabatta bread and put it in a 200-degree oven for a half hour or so. Then I put it in a mini cuisinart and pulsed it until I had bread crumbs. If you have the time, leave the bread out overnight. Mix well. (I find the only way to properly mix the meat is by hand.) Add the other egg and mix again. Then add breadcrumbs until the meat is solid and any slipperiness of the eggs is gone. You have to do this by feel, as the amount of bread crumbs necessary will vary depending on the moisture in the meat, the humidity that day, etc. Add salt and pepper.

Heat olive oil in a cast iron pan. Roll the meat into balls. The size is a personal preference. I usually get about 12-14 balls out of a pound of meat. Place meatballs in pan at least a half an inch apart. Brown on all sides. This will not cook them through. When browned add to the sauce that is simmering. They should be cooked through in 20-30 minutes.

About five minutes before the balls were done I cut up bread into four flat pieces about four inches wide. I put two cloves of garlic in a press and put them in a small bowl. I added a few tablespoons of olive oil and mixed it well. Then, I spread the bread with the garlic and olive oil and I put it under the broiler until crispy and brown.

I added the pound of fresh pasta to about 5 quarts of salted water. Fresh pasta only needs about 3 minutes to cook. It was wonderful. I have forgotten how pasta made with gluten has a slightly bread-like quality and is very springy compared to the gluten free variety. There are some very good gluten-free pastas out there but nothing equals fresh pasta. Also, real pasta is more filling than gluten-free pasta. I had forgotten this and got very full quickly.

Drain pasta, put meatballs in a bowl and serve. I topped mine with some Spanish cheese with a soft parmesan quality.

By the noises coming out of Sarah, it was a successful meal.

[Sarah's note: Yes. Yes, it was.]

Mushroom Polenta, and Leftover Breakfast Mushroom Polenta

Joe invented this riff on the Moosewood Cookbook's plain polenta recipe last night for a party. Then I got a migraine and we ended up not making it to the party, so now we have a ton of polenta to doctor up for brunch today. The recipes, courtesy of Joe:

Joe's Mushroom Polenta

5c water
1 1/2 c cornmeal (we used roasted cornmeal, which has a distinct, delicious flavor)
salt
pepper
4 shiitake mushrooms, sliced thin
1 tbsp black truffle oil
1 ripe, fresh tomato, peeled and diced
1/2 c aged gouda, shredded
1 tsbp parmesan, shredded
olive oil to taste

Boil 4 cups water. While it's boiling, mix 1 cup of water with the cornmeal. Mix until it forms a batter. When the water boils, spoon the batter into the boiling water. Whisk until smooth.

Lower heat and simmer for approximately 10 minutes, gently stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on this-- it likes to bubble over.

Turn off heat and add the mix-ins-- mushrooms, gouda and some olive oil. Stir in. Taste, and add salt and olive oil as needed.

In a separate bowl, mix diced tomato, truffle oil, parmesan, salt and pepper.

Serve in a bowl, topped with tomato mixture. This should be enough for several people, 4-6 maybe? This made a bowl big enough to bring to a party, at any rate.

And if you have leftovers...

Breakfast Polenta

Bacon
Leftover polenta
Leftover tomato mixture

Get your cast iron pan nice and hot, and fry the bacon in it. Remove bacon to drain on a paper towel.

Polenta should be easily slice-able. Fry in the bacon fat. Serve with bacon and top with either tomato mixture or dark honey (we used buckwheat honey).

Chicken Parmesan with gluten-free bread crumbs

Joe got home before me tonight, so he was on dinner duty. It's been a long Monday, so he went for Italian-American comfort food-- chicken parm.

You know how to make this, right? Dip your chicken in egg, roll it in bread crumbs, brown it in a skillet, put it in a baking dish, pour tomato sauce over it, slice some mozzarella on top, stick it in the oven. Serve with pasta (I like quinoa-corn pasta). Not that hard.

The challenging bit, if you're wheat-free, is the breading. When I lived in New York, I bought gluten-free bread crumbs in the baking section at the Union Square Whole Foods. Unfortunately, none of the Whole Foodses (?) here carry that brand, the name of which escapes me. If you're looking for GF bread crumb options, two ideas:

-Philly Whole Foods stores DO carry a brand called Southern Homestyle Tortilla Crumbs. They're GF and tasty, but they do have a very distinct corn flavor. Great for breading fish or pork chops, but they don't blend into Italian dishes the way ordinary bread crumbs do.

-To make your own GF bread crumbs: Get yourself a loaf of GF bread. The best and most neutrally flavored you can find. Whole Foods' Gluten-Free Bakehouse makes a good sandwich loaf. Food For Life loaves are decent, but the fruit-juice-sweetened ones have a sweet flavor that's almost grape-y. Trader Joe's GF English muffins aren't bad-- they crumble too easily to be practical for sandwiches, but are great for making bread crumbs.

Crumble your bread into your food processor. Give it a few pulses until it's reduced down to crumbs. Spread them out on the bottom of a metal pan (with sides, please) and pop them into the oven for ten minutes or so. This isn't an exact science, so keep an eye on them. When they're nice and toasty, use them however you please.

They don't keep for long, so don't make more than you think you'll use in a day or two.

UPDATE: According to Joe, Food For Life bread does NOT work well for this. He recommends letting the bread go a bit stale before doing this.