A friend is moving back to her native Sicily and I hosted a brunch for her yesterday. There were 7 of us and our menu was:

- Butternut Squash & Kale gratin

- Southern Biscuits

- Trio of amazing fruit preserves

- Crispy Bacon

- Winter Fruit Salad

- Soft Scrambled Eggs

And a dear friend showed up with not only bubbly, guava, and peach juice, but also a big thing of tortellini salad. Thanks Lauren! (MR. Y finished it off after the movie!)

I’m not going to preach on the easiest of this list of dishes–a quick note about bacon and eggs.

Scrambled Eggs. The key to your success is low heat and lots of stirring. You know what most recipes tell you to do with risotto? Don’t do that with risotto. Do it with eggs. They will take longer, but they will not taste like you made them in the microwave.

Bacon should be served crispy and taken out of the pan just before you think it looks crispy. It’ll get there.

My no-fail recipe for Southern Biscuits comes from Alton Brown. Don’t try to outdo it, you won’t. I follow it to a T and end up making it several days in a row after reviving it for an occasion. In fact, I’m going to go buy more flour as soon as I finish writing this. I served them with fig-almond spread, plum preserves and peach preserves from local frog hollow farms. You can buy the latter ones on their website.

Winter Fruit Salad (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

3/4 Cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
3 star anise
zest of 1 lemon
10-12 dried apricots, sliced in half
Juice from the same lemon
3 firm pears of any variety (I used Comice, Bosc, and D’anjou)
1 tart apple

Bring 4 cups water and sugar to boil with star anise, vanilla bean. Add lemon zest and dried apricots, and let cool completely. Meanwhile, peel all of your remaining fruits and remove the cores (the easiest way to remove the core of an apple is to quarter it, and turn each quarter on its side, slicing diagonally the core area off). Slice the fruit thinly and evenly and toss in the lemon juice. When syrup is cooled, gently mix all together, cover, and store 8 hours or overnight in the fridge. Serve with slotted spoon. I reserved the remaining syrup for another use in the freezer.

Butternut Squash & Kale Gratin (also adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

For an oval gratin pan, 13″ long and 3″ deep
1.25 lb thinly sliced butternut squash
1.5 lb dino/lacinato kale and/or baby rainbow chard–I did 50% of each–clean & cut into small pieces
1 small onion, diced
pinch of nutmeg
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups heavy cream or whole milk
4 T butter
2 T flour
1 T fresh flatleaf/Italian parsley, minced
1 T fresh thyme, mined
1 1/4 C gruyere cheese (about 5 oz)
lots of salt & pepper

Start by washing and spinning dry your greens. Dice the onion and begin cooking it at medium low heat in a large pan in 2 T butter. When soft, add any chard stems you are using and a pinch of nutmeg, salt, pepper. Cook another 1-2 minutes. Add greens and keep adding & stirring until all are wilted. Turn off heat and place mixture in a fine collander to remove excess moisture.

Sauce: bring 2 C cream or milk to near boil with the garlic, being sure not to let it burn. Meanwhile, in a larger sauce pan, melt 2 T butter. When melted and water content is steamed off, add the flour and whisk, cooking 1-2 min more. Add the hot milk and whisk for 1-2 more minutes while bringing to a boil, turn off and leave it alone.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Arrange 1/2 the butternut squash in your pan, evenly along the bottom. Add 1/4 the herbs, salt, pepper, and then top with 1/4 C of the cheese. Next, half the greens evenly on top. More salt & pepper, more herbs, more cheese. Pour 1/2 the sauce evenly over it at this point, and go back to the butternut squash slices. Add salt, pepper, then herbs, cheese. Add the rest of the greens, the herbs, salt & pepper. Top wit the rest of the sauce and then the rest of the cheese. Bake uncovered for the first 1/2 hour, throw foil on it for the 2nd half.

As an aside, I want to reitorate how happy I am in my new space. Oh my gosh, look at that, I have a entry table! With a place to–no, really?–place flowers. Incredible.

Some of you know that I have stolen my go-to pizza dough recipe from Wolfgang Puck. Here it is for your convenience.

1 pack dry yeast, with an expiration date we have not yet reached
1 tsp honey or brown sugar
1 cup warm water (about 105-115 degrees)
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 T olive oil

In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup of the warm water & the honey/sugar. Let it get a bit frothy while you gather your other ingredients.

In a large bowl, whisk together the remaining dry ingredients. Create a well. Add the yeast mixture to the middle and the olive oil. Add the rest of the warm water, using it to get any yeast that stuck in the bowl. Mix together. It may be quite sticky. Add more flour and knead dough until smooth and supple.

Cover with thin, damp towel (well wrung out) and put in a warm spot like on top of your gas range. Let it sit at least an hour but more if you can.

Cut it into fourths. Grab a fourth and punch it down, gathering it back into a ball. Roll it out on a large floured surface with a rolling pin, until thin but not too thin to handle and put onto a well dusted cookie sheet without a lip or a piel, if you are fancy enough to own one. I was, but I gave it away several moves ago. So back to the cookie sheet.

You’ll want to cook this on a pizza stone–if you’re going to bother making your own dough, you should get one. It makes a huge, huge difference in the texture and moisture of the pizza and how well it holds up to your toppings. It also is handy to leave in a stubborn or unpredictable oven because it will help regulate heat.

Cook it as hot as your oven goes. Don’t over fill it. Too much = hard to handle & won’t cook right. Your pizza, when ready to cook, should NOT resemble any restaurants “veggie” pizza. Too much!

Butternut Squash Pizza
Sautee cubes of fresh butternut sqash in butter or olive oil. Add salt & pepper. When tender, add some fresh or dried sage.
Thinly coat pizza skin in olive oil, and add thin slices of red onion. Add cubes of fontina. Lastly, squash.

Sundried Tomato Reduction Margarita Pizza
My mom visited a while back and left us with a sundried tomato reduction which she had made to use in a risotto. Fancy. We put it on our pizza with some mozzarella and some thyme and it was deliciousss.

My mom is pretty well known for reducing things, too. For example, demi glace. Or, port reduction for sauces on beef or pork. She’s been known to boil beef bones for days. We once had a golden retriever who would lay next to that pot for days. My mom taught her the words “reduction sauce.” She would react like you said “cookie” or “walk.”

I recently got a promotion and have been working a bit harder than the last year and a half that I enjoyed a bit of cruise control, so going to the grocery and planning meals, sadly, has been a lesser priority. I came home yesterday to a near empty refrigerator, telling myself my farm shipment would come today and refill it. It didn’t show, so we ate the same thing again tonight.

For Two:

150g rigatoni (about 2.5 cups dry)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup chicken stock or other stock
2 T tomato paste, good quality
1 shallot
1-2 T butter
1/4 head garlic, minced
fresh parsley, chopped fine
1-2 cups fresh spinach

Start your water to boil in a large pot with a lid. Meanwhile, peel the shallot and cut into quarters lengthwise. Slice 1/8 inch thick strips crosswise. Mince your garlic.

Heat a nonstick pan with moderate sides to high, add the butter. When water evaporates from the butter, add the shallot and garlic, cooking for 30seconds. Reduce heat to medium and let cook until getting fragrant and colorful. Add the cream, and let cook together. Add the tomato paste and mix. When cream is reducing and mixture is thickened, add chicken stock 1/2 of it at a time. Feel free to adjust liquid ratios to your liking.

As the pasta becomes al dente, bring the sauce to a higher heat and strain the pasta, immediately adding the spinach on top of it as it steams.  Put the pasta and spinach into the sauce pan and mix until spinach is wilted. Heat two pasta plates/bowls in the micro for 2 minutes and serve with parmasean on top!

For Two:

1lb bok choy/baby bok choy
1lb salmon of your choice (we used Atlantic)
2/3 C couscous
2 carrots, grated
1/2 onion, diced
soy sauce
toasted sesame oil
sake
parsley, chopped fine
Chat Masala spice mix (get it at Indian supply store)
Gomashi (toasted sesame seeds ground with salt, or just use some of each)
olive oil
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400. For a weekday meal, marinade your salmon flesh down in soy sauce, sake, olive oil, gomashi mixture for at least 30 min at room temperature. Place it in a small foil pan (this is to make things easier later) with a lining of parchment, adding a bit of the marinade on top so it is poached on the bottom by it. Put it in the oven.

Cut the bottoms of your bok choy and then slice so they’re in four parts lengthwise, but not necessarily completely cut apart. Wash them by immersing in water and drying with a salad spinner, if you have one. Heat a skillet to high and add toasted sesame oil or olive if you don’t have any. When hot, add bok choy and toss around to coat. Add gomashi to taste. Turn heat down if things are burning or smoking.

For couscous, heat 1-2 T olive oil and add onions at medium heat. Let soften a bit and add carrots and seasoning mixture, about 1-2 T. Add salt. Boil 1 1/2 C water, meanwhile adding couscous to onion mixture to toast a bit. When water is boiling, add to couscous mixture, turn off heat, cover immediately. Let it stand about 7 minutes to cook. Add parsley at end when fluffing to serve.

Serve it all up.

A New Year’s Day dinner recipe while we hosted Y’s brother & wife from HKG.

Pasta ingredients
semolina flour, ground finely (0 or 00 size)
wheat flour, ground finely (0 or 00 size)
2 eggs
salt

Make pasta for four – recipe (double it), cut the noodles 1/3 inch wide, lay flat to wait to be cooked at end.

Sauce ingredients
1/3 yellow onion, diced finely
1-2 T fresh thyme or lemon-thyme
Parsley, washed & chopped fine
1 package ground saffron, or pinch infused into warm clam juice or fish stock
1/2 bottle clam juice or clam bouillion
8-10oz fish stock (can buy frozen in stores)
1/2 lb shrimp
1/2 lb bay diver scallops
1/3 lb fresh crab meat
10-12 small clams (smaller = more tender)
1/2 stick butter
champagne or dry white wine, 1 cup
olive oil
salt & pepper
vanilla salt (infuse salt with vanilla pod that has been cut/used and shake, reserve for future use)

Set water to heat on high in a very large pot while you heat a large skillet with high sides & with a fitting lid to medium heat.

Add half of the butter and let melt, allowing water to sizzle off. Add the onion, and let cook until soft, but not colored. Add the thyme, and cook for 1 minute.

Meanwhile, heat to high a non-stick skillet and add the remaining butter. Once hot, add the scallops and some vanilla salt. Cook 1-2 minutes and add shrimp. When nearly done cooking, add 1/2 to 1 cup champagne or dry white wine, reduce until shrimps are cooked, remove shrimps & scallops and reserve, while continuing to reduce fluid.

To the high-sided skillet, once thyme is cooked 1 minute, add fish stock, clam juice, vanilla salt (use reason) & saffron, reducing by 1/4 to 1/2, and add clams to cook & cover it until they open. Once opened, add the liquid from the nonstick skillet and allow all to reduce.

Your water should be boiling now. Add a heaping table spoon of salt, and add the noodles to cook for 3-4 minutes. Meanwhile, add crab meat to saffron-clam mixture, to warm. When cooked, strain noodles and add to broth mixture, coating. Add the shrimp & scallops and cook 1 min on high heat. Adjust seasoning. Distribute into heated bowls and top with parsley.

Wine: we just ate it with leftover new years eve champagne.