Wednesday June 30, 2010

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Sleeping in until 7:30 feels like such a luxury! Except for the part that we live across the street from a few car shops and I woke up to a grinder bright and early in the morning. Go figure. I guess I can’t escape the damn grinder anywhere! In case any one is confused, the grinder is Alex’s favorite tool and he would use it to cut his fingernails if he could. I wouldn’t be surprised if he snuggles with it at night. On the other hand though the kid works magic with that thing, so I guess I can’t complain too much.
Daniele brought the boat to the mechanic and when he returned he gave me a list of things he wants done while he is gone. Now that the season is starting to begin we need some excel spread sheets to organize the data. He told me all the information he wants for me to log and I spent a few hours building the spread sheets. We need at least four or five; one for the boat log, one as a general sighting record for what we saw that day, one for the samples we take, another for the different pods we see and a final one for each individual animal. Before he comes back I have to get all those done, with all of the data we have collected so far correctly entered into them. I also have to get a ton more work done on the photo ID catalogue and finagle a few things here and there.
Ok, so I have a few people emailing me telling me that they are drooling over the food Daniele is making. So am I, that’s why I can’t share the recipes… Just kidding ☺. Here are the recipes I remember eating; strawberry risotto, asparagus risotto, bolognaise, veggie lasagna, vegetable and chiken teryaki stirfry.
So Daniele is that Italian chef that uses no measuring devices, changes his recipes every time based on a whim and yet every time they come out delicious. For the strawberry risotto he uses Arborio rice. He chopped up some strawberries and onion very finely and cooked the rice about half way. At that point he threw both in and let it simmer until the rice had cooked completely. I have to say it took a while for the rice to be done, but how long I don’t remember. When it was just about done he grated at least a large handful of parmesian chees and threw it in about a minute or so before it was all done. He also chopped up some Brie into pretty decent chunks and threw that in right before he served it. He does the cheese last because he says then you can actually taste it and tell that it is there. If you throw the cheese in early then it mixes with the rest of the flavors and you wont notice. Here is a recipe I found online, maybe it will help a bit http://www.ehow.com/facts_5268695_italian-used-italian-arborio-rice.html. I have to say I would never have thought to throw strawberries in there, but by the time it was all done you could only see that the rice had a pink tinge and all of the strawberry itself (because he chopped it so finely) was all but unidentifiable.
He also did the asparagus the same way. This time I was soux chef. I chopped the asparagus heads off #1. Then the rest of the body into small half inch pieces. We boiled the pieces (not the heads!) until they were really soft, cooking the rice in the meanwhile. When the asparagus was really soft, we drained it then mushed it up as much as we can. The fibers in it make it a bit hard, but its do-able. We then added that in when the rice was half way. When the rice was about 5-10 minutes from being done, we boiled the heads just until they were soft. Then at the same time you add the cheese, we added the asparagus heads, and bam!
The bolognaise I have to say is my favorite hands down. I am pretty sure I died when I ate it. In a good way that is. One again I don’t have exact measurements, so you are just going to have to try it and see how it comes out. Here is one of the closest recipes I found. http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/REAL-Italian-Bolognese-Sauce-83950
To start, he sauted onions in olive oil until they had a nice color. While he was doing that I took a carrot peeler to 2 carrots. You peel off the outside layer then continue shaving the rest of the carrot. He said that the smaller the ingredients, the more the flavor can go in and out and affect the rest of the sauce. Sure - I guess I have to believe him seeing that the sauce was AMAZING. Do the same thing with a 1-2 garlic cloves. He said normally he adds celery, but we didn’t have any at the time. Then that is all cooking nicely, he added a large can of crushed tomatoes. The recipe I gave you has exact portions, so if you get lost follow that. After the tomatoes have cooked for a bit, add finely chopped bacon. While all of this is cooking brown up some beef. Normally I go for lean beef but in this case I would say the more flavor the better. Pour the fat off the beef then add that to the sauce. Daniele told me that real Italians use another type of meat, but you can’t get it anywhere but in Italy. The other recipe calls for pork and I would try it, just to add more flavor. After the sauce has simmered for a while add freshly chopped basil and oregano. He kept tasting it while we were cooking and added salt and pepper when it needed it. The longer you simmer the more flavor will be in the sauce. Once again, about 5 minutes before he took it off the stove we added a healthy dose of parmesian. You honestly can never have enough parmesian, or at least I can’t! Serve with your favorite pasta and enjoy!
The veggie lasagna was a tricky one. I didn’t catch most of it, but here is what I can remember. Also, the recipe link I have seems real similar to the one he made, so maybe give it a try. http://www.bigoven.com/157496-Italian-Vegetarian-Lasagna-recipe.html
Once again shave or chop real finely all the ingredients. This time we shaved zucchini and carrots. Saute onions with olive oil then add the carrots and zucchin. When it is just about done add a bit of basil and oregano. Meanwhile boil a few packages of spinach. When the spinach is done mix with the carrots and zucchini. For the cheese do a mixture of ricotta, parmesian and whatever else you feel like. Daniele uses fresh lasagna sheets. Boil a huge pot of water with tons of salt. As the lasagna sheets have no flavor, the salt will infuse them and give it a bit of a kick. For that reason you don’t have to add salt into the recipe because you can already taste it in the sheets. When you are ready to start, lay the sheets in the water until they are soft. Layer the bottom of a glass pan with sheets then add the veggie mix. The thinner the layer the better. This allows for more layers (shocking!) and also makes it easier when you go to cut the lasagna and eat it. After the layer of veggies then do a layer of cheese and continue until you run out of veggies. On the top of the lasagna add about 2-3 extra sheets then cover with a mix of mozzarella and parmesian. Hopefully that works out for you! The one I had was real sweet, I think it was the mixes of cheese and carrots, but not really sure!
The stir fry Anna and I did together. We just wandered through the produce section at the grocery store and picked and choosed what we wanted. We used bok choy, carrots, peppers (red have more flavor), onions, mushrooms, broccoli, snow peas, bamboo shoots, unsalted peanuts for texture and a few others ingredients that I can’t remember. We also picked out a random bottle of teryaki sauce, which I can’t remember anymore. We chopped the veggies into good sized pieces then put them in a bowl and let them marinate in the sauce for a few hours. You gotta keep mixing the veggies to make sure they all get in the sauce. As Anna is a vegitarian I cooked and made the chicken separately. For the peanuts, if you want crunchy peanuts add them when you are about to serve, but if you want the peanuts infused with the flavor, add them into the veggies when you marinate them. After the veggies start to soak up the flavor (you can see them getting a bit brown) sauté them in the pan with some of the sauce. Right now we only have two pans, so that was a bit of a set back. White rice takes a half hour to cook properly, so plan that to be the last thing finished. We cooked up the veggies so that they were still firm when we took them off the stove. Too soggy and all the flavors start to blend and the texture is a bit gross. I used some of the left over teryaki sauce for cooking the chicken, and when it was all done we ate like kings! I made sure to pour plenty of sauce all over my rice when I was eating because it was delicious!
I know this post was a little long, but I hope you enjoyed all of the recipes. From now on whenever I eat a particularly good meal I will make sure to give the recipe so you can try it out too!

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