That's What Bob's Cooking: Italian

Showing posts with label Italian. Show all posts

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Manicotti vs. Cannelloni, a family divided

Manicotti vs Cannelloni

My family (please note we are not at all Italian!!) have been making Manicotti for decades. As long as I can remember this dish has been HIGHLY requested. Several years ago, my cousin gathered all of our family recipes, and there was some heated debate of who actually “owned” our family favorite dish. Turns out we all decided my Aunt Jean was the true originator (adapter).

No please don’t get me wrong, while our “manicotti” is a family favorite version, I learned years later that the actual dish we made was cannelloni, or a version there of. We used 4 cheeses, cottage, cheddar, mozzarella and that green can of “sawdust”, err I mean parm….. at some point and time someone added little smokes into the tubes. Don’t ask, I don’t know.

Fast forward quite a few years, and a friend invited us over for dinner. She was making tons of manicotti. We discussed the above mentioned family version. In the end I learned our version was completely backwards. But we still call it manicotti.

Here is our favorite Manicotti to make. In the pictures I has making it to give away (I don’t normally don’t bake in tin foil!) but I do make extra filling and stuff all the tubes. Then tuck a tray or two into a freezer bag and freeze them for a later dinner. We always have left of spaghetti sauce (Goon’s Spaghetti), so this is a quick and VERY easy dish to pop together when your feeling time poor.

Manicotti

1 package of Manicotti tube pasta
16 oz ricotta
8 oz grated parm
1/4 Parsley, chopped loosely packed
Salt and pepper to taste
1 egg, beaten
3- 4 cups Left over spaghetti sauce, or your favorite jar
12-16oz Shredded Mozzarella
1 Pastry bag

Instructions

Par cook the pasta. You want to not fully cook, as they will fall apart.
Set of parchment to cool
Mix together the ricotta, parm parsley and egg. Lightly salt (the cheese may have enough salt). Add pepper to your liking.
Put the filling mixture into the pastry bag, cut off a small/medium hole in the tip. you can also use a ziplock bag, and cut off one corner.
Take the bag and pipe the filling into the tube.

If you don’t have a piping bag, you can use a spoon to stuff the tube

(At this point you can place the back into the plastic contained the uncooked past came in, and slide into a large ziplock, to freeze)
Layer about 1/2 cup in the bottom of a prepared baking dish.
Place the stuffed tubes in a baking pan.
Continue until the pan is full.
Place the remainder of your pasta sauce on top of the pasta.
Top with shredded mozzarella
Bake at 350°, for 20-35 minutes, or until golden and bubble.

Here are the family versions…..

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Fresh Spinach Pesto

Inspiration to cook, is everywhere!

As a Christmas gift for Craig, I joined us up for a winter CSA (community supported agriculture) at a local urban farm, 47th Avenue Farms, here in Portland. It’s been amazing, and reminds us of the old CSA we belonged to, in the Seattle area. Everything is fresh and grown locally, unlike a few we have tried. (Where they still had stickers on the fruit)

Anyhow, it’s been a challenge to get through a lot of the potatoes and carrots. Living with a “part-time” vegetarian, as I call him, you would think potatoes wouldn’t be an issue, but my husband doesn’t care for them. We both like carrots, but really it’s hard to get through 2lbs a week! (Might make a curried carrot soup?)

Anyhow, last week we got 3 large bunches of spinach. And I have been dying to try spinach pesto. So yesterday, I cleaned, de-stemmed and dried all of the spinach, got out my new food processor, and went for it!

Here is the recipe for the pesto, and below it, is how I made the pasta dinner.

SPINACH PESTO

INGREDIENTS

2 to 3 cups packed fresh baby spinach

½ to 1 cup mixed fresh parsley &basil

2 to 3 cloves garlic; whole or minced

¼ cup toasted pine nuts

½ to 1 cup good quality extra-virgin olive oil + more if needed

¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan

Salt & pepper, to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine the spinach, parsley, garlic, and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil (I used about a cup) into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly combined. Add the parmesan and pulse again. Season with salt and pepper.

To serve:

Cook pasta according to directions.

Reserve about 1 cup of the hot pasta water.

Scoop about ½ cup of the spinach pesto over pasta, mix and add in a small amount of the hot pasta water. The hot water will melt the pesto slightly and coat all of the pasta.

Gently toss to combine.

Top with slices of grilled chicken, if you like.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Chicken Parmesan

Quite a few years ago I used to work at an Italian restaurant in Portland Oregon, Sylvia's Italian restaurant. One of her specialties there was chicken Parmesan. I mad it so often it's one recipe I remember without having to write it down.

To this day I make from scratch and it always an enjoyable dinner. It really is a quick and easy dinner to make, that'll impress everyone you're serving.

Chicken Parmesan

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 Cup Panko

2 T Black pepper

2 T Garlic powder

2 T Dried Parsley

2 eggs, beaten (add 1-2 T water) (egg wash)

2 T (or so) Olive oil

Parmesan, grated (I used Asiago) about 1 T per breast

Tomato sauce, about 2 T per breast

Mozzarella, grated (I used fresh mozzarella), about 2 T per breast

1. Heat oven to 350°F

2. Prep chicken, by cutting it in half, and butterflying the lower lobe.

3. Mix Panko, pepper, parsley and garlic powder

4. Dip chicken in egg wash

5. Then dredge* in it the Panko mixture.

6. Place oil in pan and heat to almost smoking

7. Place chicken in pan and fry one side until golden brown, flip and brown on other side.

8. Place chicken in 9x13 pan

9. Top chicken with tomato sauce, Parmesan and mozzarella

10. Back in oven for 35-40 minutes, or until mozzarella is golden brown.

Serve with butter pasta of choice, and a vegetable, like broccoli.

*Dredge means to to drag across. What I usually do is drag it across, then press it into the mixture.

My Complete Profile

I was born and raised on the East side of Portland Oregon, by two native and second generation, Oregonians, my Mom and Dad (Jack and Joan). Oregon, and the Northwest are deep in my blood. That being said, I have always had an interest in cooking. I would love to add a warm loving story here about how my Mom nurtured my love of cooking by setting me up on or near the counter top to help with whatever she was cooking. Well, that's not exactly the case.

Being a child of the 70's and 80's, I had a great exposure to classic foods like Spam, Tang, Rice-a-Roni and Hamburger Helper. While many of these premade, sodium roller coaster, treats where regulars on our table, my Mom would have to hold the title as "casserole queen". Casseroles are her favorite and her specialty. Whereas, my Dad was more of a spur of the moment kind of cook. His creations included many of the items from our makeshift pantry. Sometimes, i think he was thinking, "the more ingredients, the better it'll be!". I think my first attempt at cooking would have to have been making cookies, either peanut butter (with the criss-cross fork tine print on top), or chocolate chip cookies. Over the years I have made so many of both of these recipes, I have surely lost count.

During middle school, my Mom encouraged me to take Home Economics, thinking that all kids, boy or girl, should know how to cook out in this world. This sparked a growing interest in cooking. So when I entered my junior year of High School, at David Douglas, I enrolled in the culinary arts program, we called it Food Services I. This was a class that had been offered many years before, where the students ran a restaurant, The Kilt, during the lunch periods. Unfortunately, since the class had not been offered in several years, so we didn’t have enough students to open the restaurant, that year. Within the first few weeks of this class, my instructor asked if I'd like to be involved in an outside "club" (kind of like a version of Eagle Scouts) that was mentored by local business owners. It sounded interesting so I joined (not to mention it got me out of the first 2 periods of the day).

At our first meeting I was approached by Sylvia Poesdel, the owner of the Portland landmark restaurant, Sylvia's Italian Restaurant & Dinner Theatre. She asked me if I would be interested in an afterschool job, coming to work for her to learn the cooking/chef trade on the job. I jumped at the chance and started in October of 1985. During my senior year I rejoined the culinary arts program (Food Services II) and this year we were able to reopened the restaurant, which the rest of the students voted me to manage. I just absolutely loved it! I worked at Sylvia's until after I graduated, in 1989. I learned a lot about the restaurant industry, and I would have to say it would be one of just a few life altering jobs I have had throughout my career.

After high school, while I was working at Sylvia's, I applied to culinary arts school. The Two things kept me from continuing my career in culinary arts, were financial and having worked out in the field, I saw so many negative attributes to being a chef, I decided that since I love to cook, I wanted it to be a hobby, and not a drag to go work each day.

When I left Sylvia's, I worked at a hotel, then Safeway. From there I joined Fred Meyer in the Service Deli, and was quickly promoted to a manager. During the next 8 years, I worked throughout the Portland and Southern Oregon areas. In 1998, I earned a promotion to the regional specialist position (District Manager) in Seattle. During this career move, I learned so much about the Food Service industry. I was charged to develop a new service salad case program, as well as work on a new catering program. I had the opportunity to work with manufacturers to develop these new programs.

In 2000, I met the love of my life, Craig. I also, moved from the food service program to the grocery department as an assistant manager. In the capacity I learned to develop my management skills as well as managing inventory. By being the best in my category, I earned the position of manager, where I moved from store to store cleaning up and reorganizing as I went. I also was entrusted with training future Food managers for the region. At which point I was pursued by another company to run a store for them, and enter back into the restaurant industry. During these 3 years, I learned the Restaurant Supplier side of the business. While I enjoyed the time I spent in this opportunity, I yearned to go back to the Grocery industry, and spend more time with my first love, cooking, and writing about my adventures….in the kitchen!