I had about a half a pound of ground grassfed beef in the freezer. It really wasn’t enough to make burgers, and Roberto has been craving meatballs lately. So I decided to make some pasta with red sauce and mini meatballs.

In my constant quest for pasta that is good for you, and doesn’t make me symptomatic, I came across another option from DeBoles– my favorite pasta company. Most of their pastas are made with a flour other than or in addition to wheat. I have had 100% corn (my favorite), and a Jerusalem artichoke/semolina mix, and now Ancient Grain. Ancient Grain is a mixture of organic spelt, quinoa and amaranth, along with organic whole grain semolina and organic whole grain durum. It packs 32 grams of whole grains per serving, and cooks up just like regular pasta.

Due to my issues with grains, I don’t cook pasta very often. But every once in a while it is nice to have a nice steaming bowl of pasta with red sauce, and for those occasions, I am thankful that I have these ready made pastas available. When I eat it, I try to eat more sauce than pasta, actually!

I wanted to make a nice sauce to go with it. Roberto, being Italian and a lover of pasta, does eat it more often than I do. For those occasions, he goes with a nice local organic jarred sauce. There was about a half a jar left of sauce in the fridge and a ¾ can of tomato paste. So this is a leftover queen recipe for sure! I added to those the mini meatballs, onions, garlic, wine and dried porcini mushrooms from Marx Foods. There is a giveaway of these porcini mushrooms (and morels) going on over at The Foodie Blogroll this month. So if you haven’t commented over there to win, please do! The mushrooms are excellent and added an amazing depth of flavor to my sauce with a mere pinch or two of the small broken bits and powder at the bottom of the bag. The sauce turned out dark and thick, perfect for coating the penne. With a nice crumble of soft goat cheese and a quick grate of Parmiggiano cheese on top, it was a great and extremely flavorful winter meal.

The other wonderful thing about this dish besides the wonderful flavor, is that it is also extremely inexpensive and would serve a family nicely with a side salad. This is a great way to stretch your grassfed beef, if you are worried about cost. This dish serves 4, and was about $1.75 per serving.

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A few weeks ago, I got a nice package in the mail from Tropical Traditions. They are doing a giveaway this month on The Foodie Blogroll, and as the creator of that community, I often receive some nice perks for putting these giveaways on for the community. One of the delicious coconut items in the package was a bag of coconut flour (to see all the items, and for a chance to win them, click here). I was really excited to see coconut flour included in the package, as I have been working with a variety of Gluten Free and Grain Free flours lately.

I had some chicken tenderloins in the fridge, and thought it would be fun to make Coconut Chicken Tenders. I always have a bag of dessicated coconut in the pantry, and so with an egg I was ready to go.

I served it with a potato puree that I made in my Vitamix. I had intended to make mashed potatoes, but those blades are certainly powerful! So mashed becomes pureed! The puree turned out delicious and udderly (pun intended) creamy – a perfect accompaniment to the chicken.

I used a special butter in the puree. Delitia Parmigiano Reggiano Butter is made from the cream left over from Parmigiano Reggiano cheese production. It is a delicious, delicate and flavorful butter – with a Parmigiano Reggiano quality to it. If you happen upon some, it is worth trying. It is certainly not local to me, but the quality of Italian dairy products is known the world over.

Coconut Chicken Tenders

INGREDIENTS:

6 chicken tenderloins

1 egg, scrambled

1/8 cup coconut flour

¼ cup dessicated coconut

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Rinse and pat dry the chicken tenderloins. Dip them in the egg, and then the mixture of the flour and coconut. Place them on a cookie sheet and cook for 25 minutes – turning halfway through. Serve with potato puree.

Potato Puree

INGREDIENTS:

4 Idaho potatoes, boiled until soft

1- inch slice of Delitia Parmigiano Reggiano Butter

dash of heavy cream

salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

Place all the ingredients in the Vitamix, and blend until smooth.

Brunello di Montalcino is a very special wine variety made in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is known the world over as being a very good wine. Our friends Erin and Chris, who lived for a year in Florence, had a bottle that they wanted to share with us. They had fond memories of a night in Florence that they spent with friends savoring a bottle of this wine, and wanted to spend another evening like that with us! So of course we were game and very excited to taste wine from a very different bracket than what we are used to.

Since they were bringing such a nice bottle, I offered to find some tasty morsels to go along with the wine, so we could have a proper Aperitivo – or the Italian version of Happy Hour! If you would like to learn more about Aperitivo, please check out Ms. Adventures in Italy. Sarah has a great passion for Aperitivo and has great tips on how you can have your own – or where to go for the best ones in her hometown of Milano!

I knew this was a special wine, so I enlisted the help of a professional to come up with food ideas to compliment it. With the help of my buddy, Vince DiPiazza (no known relation – though I am sure there is one somehow, not many of us DiPiazza’s in the world) from D’Italia – an online specialty store of food products from Italy, we came up with a menu of aperitivi, or small plates:

Variety of cheeses of different flavor profiles served with Rosemary Grissini and Garbanzo Crackers

Parmigiano-Reggiano is Italy’s most famous cheese, known as Parmesan in the English language. We know it well as a cheese for grating on top of pasta. However, if you eat it in cubes, it is a whole other experience. The cheese is made from raw cow’s milk, it is then put into a brine bath for 20-25 days to absorb salt, and then aged for 12 months. My favorite part (and Erin’s too) are the little crunchies you get in a good Parmigiano – the crunchies are bits of crystallized salt.

Morbier is a raw cow’s milk cheese from France. It is a Gruyère-like cheese with a vein of ash running through its middle. The two layers of the cheese originally came from two milkings, one in the morning and one in the evening, over it with a protective thin layer of tasteless ash, both to prevent it from both drying out and to keep away the flies. The next day, they would add the leftover curd from the morning milking and production. The result was a two-layered cheese.

Goat Fromage Blanc is from a batch of the pasteurized goat milk cheese that I made recently. I added some basil and a little dried dill – as well as a few sun-dried tomatoes (Vince said they pair well with Brunello) stirred in.

Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar is one of our favorite cheeses, and we decided to add it at the last minute. It never tastes the same from one batch to the next. It is the cheese variety that Cabot used to sell to hunters and truckers…on their way out of town. Chris said it tasted like ham to him, which as a vegetarian, was a weird experience. This cheese is amazing paired with a sweet bread and butter style pickle.

Miscellaneous Treats

Sautéed Mushrooms
Hummus
Assorted Nuts
Assorted Olives
Pickles

Dessert

French Truffles
Chocolate covered mint cremes

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The Tasting :

When Erin and Chris arrived we opened the bottle to give it about 20 minutes to breathe. We decided to do the tasting in two stages, the first without food, and then one with food. We each had a piece of paper and a pen. We spent about 5-10 minutes sniffing and tasting the wine, and individually writing our impressions of both the nose and the taste without sharing.

NOSE:

Erin: cheese – brie, sweet chocolate, metal
Chris: robust, dank – wet wood or earth, finishes smoky
Roberto: cherries
Jenn: woody, tannins, blackberry/cherry

TASTE:

Erin: milk chocolate, cheddar, old smoke – like what your clothes smell like after a BBQ or fire
Chris: pungent, truffles, finishes with citrus (mild burn, fruity end) and something like ginger, but not quite ginger
Roberto: old fermenting cherries, blueberry and ends with citrus
Jenn: black pepper, herbal/smoky, cherry

After we shared our observations, we found it interesting that both the guys had noticed a citrus end, while the ladies had both noticed a smoky taste. Is it coincidence, or do males and females taste wine differently?

Once we headed over to the food, and had a second glass with food, we all agreed that the wine tasted much sweeter, and it was at that point that Erin and I noticed a bit of a citrus taste.

It was a really fun night. I can’t say that I have ever really enjoyed wine in this way, and I think it is a really great way to spend the evening with friends. We decided we had so much fun, that we definitely need to do it again, with different wines and food pairings.

Thanks everyone for all your great comments recently – especially as it pertains to my two posts on year 2010 goals. I think we all have goals, but for me, putting it out there and in some sense therefore being more accountable makes it more fun – and more of a challenge for me! So thanks for all your lovely comments and feedback!

In my last post, as it pertains to one of my food goals for this year, I told you I was going to post a recipe for creamy tomato soup that I prepared in my Vitamix for lunch last week. I was lucky enough to receive one of these AWESOME machines from my lovely husband for my birthday. I have been wanting one for over 3 years, and this year, I guess I was a good girl! These machines are not cheap, but they do take the place of a blender, food processor and grinder (you can actually grind coffee beans in it) all in one. In fact you can make fresh fruit and veggie juice in it too – not pulpy but rich and creamy from all the natural fibers – the blades are that powerful. You can even make a kind of ice milk or fruity dessert in it as well.

We have really been enjoying all the above mentioned treats have we make with it, especially our nightly smoothies, but one of the things I love the most about the Vitamix is that is actually MAKES soup – I mean you don’t even have to cook it – the heat created from the friction of the ultra fast blades heats it up! So you literally have soup in 5 minutes.

Here is what I did:

INGREDIENTS:

1 box of Pomi strained tomatoes
1 ½ organic roasted red peppers (jarred)
dash of organic heavy cream
salt
freshly ground pepper
dried oregano
dried basil

I put all of this in the Vitamix and let her rip. In about 3-4 minutes you could see the steam coming out of the lid, telling me that it was done. That’s IT. The soup was so rich and creamy. The taste of the black pepper was very prominent – I guess it go so pulverized that it really infused the entire soup. I put a dollop of homemade yogurt on top and it was a wonderful, filling and super healthy lunch full of one of my favorite things – Lycopene, because it is oh so good. So go ahead and enjoy some tomato soup today!

On another note my friend Betherann from Kitchen Courage gifted me with a Beautiful Blogger Award and asked me to share 7 things about myself. So here they are:

1) I just took a DNA test for ancestry and health. I am adopted and know nothing at all about my birth family, my ethnic heritage or the types of health problems that run in the family. I have been waiting 33 years for this – and decided to finally do it. If we are facebook friends, keep checking my status update for how you can be involved in this life changing event! Trust me, it’ll be fun!

2) My favorite flower is the Thistle.

3) If I never had asparagus again in my life, I wouldn’t miss it.

4) I believe in life you have to be willing to take risks in order to realize your full potential.

5) My favorite color is Rust – which is why I probably love eating pumpkin, squash and sweet potatoes so much!

6) I spent a year in Norway and speak some Norwegian  – I used to be fluent – but it has been 15 years!

7) I am a very accurate and passionate archer – makes sense since I am a Sagittarius!

(My first attempts—deformed æbleskiver…)

Have you had Æbleskiver (pronounced EB-el-sku-wyr)? They are yummy and delicious, cute and round Danish Pancakes that can be eaten with syrup, like pancakes, or filled with anything from fruit to cream, or even Nutella! I imagine some savory combinations too – like apples and cheddar, perhaps?

I heard about them several years ago, but saw them being cooked for the first time in San Francisco, this past November, at the Foodbuzz Food Bloggers Festival. That is where I met Chad Gillard, co-owner of Aunt Else’s Æbleskiver. He was there in the afternoon’s tasting pavilion as part of the Foodzie crew, demonstrating how to make æbleskiver using Aunt Else’s Æbleskiver Mix which is made with organic, Minnesota grown wheat & organic buttermilk from Wisconsin and using Aunt Else’s high quality, locally made 9-hole cast iron æbleskiver pan. I was really intrigued and got in touch with Chad after the festival to see if he wanted to do a giveaway on Foodieblogroll.com, so we could start an Æbleskiver Revolution in the Food Blogging world! So that is how I came to be a lucky recipient of an æbleskiver pan and Aunt Else’s mix at no charge for hosting the giveaway.

I decided that my maiden attempt to make æbleskiver would be over Thanksgiving, while my family was visiting. I wanted everyone to have a chance to taste these little darlings, and I was excited to offer something unique for breakfast. I had prepared the cast iron pan the night before so it was all set. When it was time, I used coconut oil to prepare the pan for cooking. Making the mix was easy – just add eggs and water and you are ready to go! Just like pancakes, the first few batches didn’t really look as round and cute as Chad’s did at the festival – but then again, I comforted myself in that knowledge that he is a professional! I was about to get discouraged, but then the batches started coming out great! It is fun to make æbleskiver, after you pour the batter in, you turn them several quarter turns using a metal implement that comes with the kit. Back in the day, the Danes would use a knitting needle – but I suppose you could also use a chopstick!

I decided to make a simple version – just plain and sprinkled with powdered sugar! Powdered sugar makes everything look pretty – even my deformed æbleskiver! I served them with maple syrup for dipping.

(Practice makes perfect….)

I really love Aunt Else’s stuff, especially the fact that they are a small company making their product locally, and using local and organic ingredients in their mix. That is something I feel really good about supporting. For your chance to win your own Æbleskiver Kit, check out Aunt Else’s Contest Page on The Foodie Blogroll. Mange tak, Chad and Aunt Else’s!

Well another month is about to start which means that we have some new giveaways to announce this month!!!

Cupcake Provocateur Couture Chef Aprons

I am really excited to announce this month that we are working with Cynthia from Cupcake Provocateur . She is a member of the Foodie Blogroll, and sells her own line of really cute and durable kitchen aprons!  In this picture I am wearing the Perfect Pear Brown design.

Here are some of the staff members of Charm City Cakes (Ace Of Cakes) wearing their Artisan Chef aprons!!!!

So you will be in good company for sure!

I love this line of aprons and you will too! The winner will be able to chose their favorite Artisan Chef apron from her website. To be eligible, please post on The Foodie Blogroll forum which Chef apron you would chose if you were picked as a winner! Then we will choose a random winner from all those who comment.

To see the apron choices, please check out The Cupcake Provocateur

The winner will also receive “Cupcakes in A Jar” — decorative mason jars featuring some of her most popular cupcake flavors made into dry mixes!!!! This contest is available to all of our Foodie Blogroll members! So head on over to the forum today and tell us which apron is your favorite, for a chance to win!

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The Ginger People Halloween Recipe Contest

We have another exciting contest to share with you! Our friends at The Ginger People are back to offer a tasty gift basket of warming ginger treats, perfect for autumn baking to one lucky winner!

Entries due October 31, 2009!

To enter, please share with us, on this forum thread,  a Halloween themed ginger recipe featuring GINGER. One lucky participant will win an awesome 5 lb. Ginger People gift basket. As a bonus just for entering the recipe contest, all entrants will receive 20% off their order of awesome Ginger People products (good through November 15, 2009)!

Please post your Halloween ginger recipes here!

If you aren’t familiar with The Ginger People’s product line, please check out their webpage: TheGingerPeople.com . Their Ginger Snaps are my favorite cookies on the market, and their Ginger Gizer is a triple ginger energy drink. Perfect for keeping the cold, and any upset tummies away. Many more great products on their website! This contest is available for US residents only.

Don’t forget to follow The Ginger People on Twitter @TheGingerPeople!

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Stuffed Nation Giveaway

Don’t forget the Stuffed Nation Giveaway is still going on. Blog about your thoughts on obesity in the US or food policy and you will have a chance to win the book, by Hank Cardello. This is a huge topic that affects everyone, and food bloggers should be one of the many voices heard. We have deep roots in the food community, and with that comes a chance to speak up and be heard! So please participate. If you would like to learn more about this giveaway, please click here.

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Star Extra Virgin Olive Oil Giveaway

We also have Star Olive Oil giving away bottles of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a recipe book!  For more details about this giveaway, and how you can win a trip to Spain, visit The Foodie Blogroll website!

Last week marked the first day of Autumn for us, in the Northern Hemisphere. The Autumn Equinox, Harvest Home, Mabon, or whatever you like to call it, is officially my favorite day of the year, because it marks my favorite season of the year. Autumn for me is like the beginning of a new year, a re-birth of sorts, a time for inner reflection as we turn inwards while hunkering down for colder weather. There is much to celebrate – cooler temperatures, fireplaces, time with family, cozy evenings sipping hot beverages, snuggling up in blankets and reading stories, beautiful colors, and seasonal fare. I feel like fall foods, are some of the most universally seasonal eating people do – hearty soups and stews, pumpkins and other winter squashes, roasted root vegetables, and fruits like pears and apples figure prominently for most people without even having to think about it. There is something about the crisp air that hearkens to change.

To celebrate the change of seasons, I always like to make a special dinner on that day. So for this equinox I prepared Apple and Swiss Chard Tart. You may remember me making this before, but this time, I prepared my own gluten free crust, using a combination of garbanzo bean, fava bean and rice flours. I also used Cameo apples, one of my favorites. It goes wonderful with a nice slice of sharp cheddar – another ingredient in the pie. We always have the Seriously Sharp Cabot Cheddar in our fridge. It is amazing to eat plain, but also goes great in cooking. It also makes us feel closer to the home in our heart, the state of Vermont.

Because this is such a comforting, yet healthy dish, I wanted to make it in honor of something else, besides just the changing of the guards so to speak. Just like last year, when I baked it for Breast Cancer Awareness. This year I wanted to make it for the O Foods Contest for Ovarian Cancer Awareness. This is its second year running and is done to raise awareness about Ovarian Cancer. The O Foods tradition is in honor of our friend, award-winning pastry chef Gina DePalma,  author of Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen. Gina has been fighting ovarian cancer for the past year and a half, and in addition to physically battling the disease, she has also started the Cowgirl Cure Foundation to raise awareness and money for research as well. She is an amazing woman, and I wish her all the best. She will be judging this years O Foods Contest!!! But since I am posting this on the last day of the contest (and I apologize profusely for that), you can also participate by just donating money to the Cowgirl Cure Foundation.

We raised a toast to Gina and Autumn by sipping some nice and sparkling Italian Prosecco with our tart dinner! If you are looking for some delicious fall flavors, this tart has it all, apples, chard, cheddar and caramelized onions. For the recipe, click here . As for the crust recipe, I adapted it from a recipe on About.com. The flavor was amazing, but the crust did stick to the tart pan. So I would suggest using butter (I used oil) to grease the pan with. If anyone else has other suggestions for greasing tart pans, I would love to hear them!

Today I am going to share with you two recipes, each one, from my favorite cookbooks of the moment: Dishing Up Vermont: 145 Authentic Recipes from the Green Mountain State and  Nourishing Traditions . First I must apologize for the lack of “finished product” pictures. We were so hungry, and it smelled so good, that we forgot to take any pictures of the plated dishes!!!

Even though it is still in the high 80’s and 90’s here in Florida (and we have been dealing with a broken AC for almost a week), we did have a few cooler days in the past few weeks. My internal clock is abuzz with massive autumnal cravings, so on those days I know I have to take advantage of the cooler temperatures to cook up some delicious fall fare. This is my absolute favorite time of year to cook!

As my internal clock made the shift from summer to autumn, I began searching through my favorite cookbooks looking for inspirational meals, that are on the cusp of the seasons. This Maple Glazed Chicken with Roasted Garlic and Lemon Puree, definitely fit the bill. Roasted chickens and maple always remind me of fall in New England, whereas the lemon adds a summery note. I also opted for a creamy Fennel Soup – fennel has a bright anise note, yet it is also a bulb, which reminds me of hearty autumn foods.

Both dishes were quite easy to make. I decided to forego the method for the chicken in the cookbook, and instead roast it up in my tagine. If you don’t have a tagine, you can certainly use a cast iron dutch oven, or heavy roasting pan. As a last resort, you could even use a baking dish. I took a short cut with the method because I didn’t have a lot of time to brine the bird, and do all the pan sauteeing and oven baking that recipe required. Plus the tagine has never failed me when it comes to roasting chickens. Although I will be making this dish again, and according to the recipe at some point, because the flavors were outstanding – sweet, tart and garlicky, all noticeable in their own right, yet completely perfect in unison. Plus the cooking methods in the original recipe, sounds really good, so I am sure it will be excellent!

The fennel soup was also delicious. A simple combination of fennel, leeks and potatoes blended together to make a super creamy dish – without cream. I used some of the chicken stock I made a few weeks back as the base. It was really delicious. We enjoyed it for lunches for several days last week as well. With no AC I even had it several times cold, and it was really quite nice.

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