Pesto Presto

It's Wednesday night as I type this (I think it is, anyway. Being in Atlanta for two days totally threw off my internal day tracking, and I spent the better part of a conference call yesterday insisting to a colleague it was Monday. Which, in fact, it was not.).

Wait, where was I going with this?

Oh yes. It is Wednesday night. Which means we are all starting to look forward to Friday night pizza. I posted a few weeks ago a reminder that spinach, so gorgeous right now, makes a great substitute for basil in your favorite pesto recipe. And let me tell you, it absolutely, positively rocks on pizza. Dare I say even better than a basil pesto? A basil pesto is wonderfully sweet, while a spinach one has just a bit of edge to it. It is perfect, just perfect on your pizza dough. Top it with fresh mozzarella and then either some prosciutto or some shredded rotisserie chicken. If you want to go meatless, try some sauteed mushrooms. Heaven.

Just in case you don't have your favorite pesto recipe handy, here's how I do it:

1) Fill your food processor with spinach leaves.

2) Add 2 cloves of garlic that you've sort of loosely chopped (the food processor will do the real chopping, you just want to be able to scatter them sort of evenly).

3) Pulse until finely chopped.

4) Open, add a cup of grated Parmesan cheese and generous pinch of freshly ground pepper. Some folks add a pinch of salt, but I think the cheese makes it salty enough.

5) With the food processor going, add about 1/4 cup of good olive oil - the kind that is so yummy you like to dip your bread in it. This is not the place to use the regular stuff that you cook with every day, get something really fabulous. Check the consistency and add a bit more olive oil as needed.

6) You are ready to spread it on your pizza crust - enjoy!

A Watershed Moment

Every once in a while I travel to our Atlanta office and work there for a day or two. Folks inevitably ask why I've come to town, and I generally murmur something about a "client meeting" or "practice group conference." But the truth is this: I have to get my Watershed fix. Watershed has been one of my all time favorite restaurants for several years now, particularly for lunch. Every single thing is delicious, the service is fabulous, and the location (minutes from Midtown) cannot be beat. We were there on Monday for a working lunch, and let me tell you friends, I worked that shrimp and crab burger. Mmmmm. If you, dear reader, are in Atlanta or need an excuse to be, this is your place. Here is where you can find them.

Travelin' Fool

I'm on the road for work the next 2 days; check back here Wednesday!

How Sweet It Is

The Tar Heels are playing in the Sweet Sixteen tonight, and we are having company for dinner. It's Friday, which means our usual Friday night grilled pizza is what's on the menu, but I've been wracking my brain all day trying to think of how to make a blue and white pizza. Are there any natural blue foods out there? (Blueberries, which are suspiciously close to Duke blue, do not count. It must be Carolina Blue).

If not, would it be really, really disgusting to add food coloring to the pizza dough?

Probably.

I guess we'll have to settle for making this out of pepperoni:

Go Heels!!

Tweak Tweak

I have not blogged the past 2 nights because I've been catching up on some very important things. Like my Tivo'd episodes of Selling New York that I missed while we were out of town. OMG, I am completely addicted to that show. DH and I honeymooned in New York many years ago, and in my fantasy world, one of these days we buy a little place up there and get there about once a month. (Uh-huh. Right after I get my book deal and ocean front beach house).
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The past few times I've made my homemade mac and cheese, it hasn't come out all that great. The sauce was a little gritty and tasted almost dry. It occurred to me later that I was using the pre-shredded packaged cheese, which I don't normally use. I switched back to the block cheese that I grate myself, and it came out perfectly again. So if you've done the same thing, and your results haven't been fabulous, try going back to block cheese and put a little elbow grease into grating it yourself. Another tip: because I use a combination of mozzarella and cheddar cheese for my sauce, I often use my food processor to grate entire blocks of both at one time. This is far more cheese than you need for one batch of mac and cheese, but the grated cheese freezes beautifully and is all ready for you the next time you need it.
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For those who need it, here's the sort-of-recipe:

Melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons flour and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add one cup milk, and whisk constantly until it starts to thicken. If it gets too thick, add more milk slowly, up to one additional cup (I find how thick my white sauce gets depends on whether I am using skim, 1%, or 2% milk. It's an inexact science, but you'll get the hang of it.) Once you have a nice thick-but-not-too-thick white sauce going, turn off the heat and whisk in 1 cup each of cheddar and mozzarella cheese (disclosure: I vary these amounts all the time, because I just throw the cheese in by the handful until it gets as cheesy as I want it) (wow, it's harder than you would think to write down recipes for food preparation that just floats around in your head).
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This is THE best whisk for making the cheese sauce. The flat bottom lets you get all the nice floury bits at the bottom of your pan and helps ensure your sauce isn't lumpy. If you don't have one, get one! You will use it all the time.

Out With The Old

One of my very favorite things about our house is our dining room. It is, in my mind, the perfect place to eat. It's next to the kitchen, which makes it convenient for serving the food, but is an entirely separate room, which means you are not looking at dirty dishes throughout your meal. It is big enough to accommodate some nice substantial pieces of furniture, but not so big that we feel like we're eating in the Bat Cave. And, with perhaps more luck than deliberate design, we've furnished and decorated it in a way that seems to strike just the right balance between dressy and everyday-usable. It's like the perfect sundress - easy to dress up with pearls and a great clutch, easy to dress down with flip flops and a beach bag.

It does, however, have one major flaw:

I despise this chandelier. The prissy shades, the weird leaves, the Gothic-like finish on it. You, dear readers, are not really seeing it in all its glory, when it was covered in a bunch of crystals. Ugh. Not to mention it is centered right in the middle of the room, but the builder failed to think about the fact that once you have a sideboard in the room, the dining table is actually off-center by several feet. Whenever we have a dinner party we have to seat our shortest guest under it to minimize the chances of a serious head injury.

Happily, it is on its way out. I am determined that by the end of this month we'll have a fresh look that no longer poses a threat to any one under 5 feet tall. Stay tuned.

Tastes Like Chicken

We are home safe and sound...how does a week of vacation fly by so fast?

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A few more Charleston notes before we turn back to regular business of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you are looking for the best fried shrimp in the Low Country (and let's be clear, I know fried shrimp), you MUST eat at Joseph's, on Meeting Street. And the best people watching + fabulous food has got to be Sermet's, on King Street. Oh, such a happy tummy I had all last week.

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Now, back to business. I have made a wonderful discovery in the Dinner-In-Less-Than-20-Minutes-Department. Our grocery store (Publix) sells pre-made and seasoned chicken burger patties (in the organic meat section). These are fabulous. All you have to do is grill them up and make a veggie to go with them. All of us love them. Keep an eye out for them, and pick them up if your grocery store has them.