I will begin posting recipes on this page. This will include recipes from my posts and recipes in my files. All of these recipes have been tested in Nick’s Kitchen. I hope to be able to post them under broad general categories so that the search engine can take you to all recipes in that category. As you can see this site is a work in progress. As I learn I add new features. There is soooo much to learn, its incredible.
Nick
Have a beautiful summer morning.
Frittata with Onions, Chicken Livers, and Herbs
What you Need
6 free range eggs (not store bought)
1 red chilli pepper fresh finely chopped
¼ of a red pepper diced
2 cups of thinly sliced onions
1 cup of grated zucchini
6 chicken livers (must be fresh)
1/3 cup of chopped herbs (cilantro, parsley, mint, oregano, rosemary, French sorrel, mustard leaves, it doesn’t matter what) finely chopped.
I cup of grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
How to Throw it Together
Very slowly cook onions, chilli pepper, red pepper, and chicken livers with lid on for about 15 minutes, stir occasionally. Meanwhile beat eggs together, and grate the cheese. After fifteen minutes remove the lid and add the zucchini. Increase the heat to medium and cook for 5 to 7 minutes until the onions begin to brown and the chicken livers begin to melt. Mash the chicken livers lightly to distribute them in the onion mixture. Cool the mixture to room temperature.
Add the cooled mixture to the eggs, add the cheese and the herbs, stir.
In a non-stick or cast iron sauté pan that can go in the oven, heat 3 tablespoons of butter over low heat. When the butter is melted add the egg and chicken liver mixture and let cook slowly, about 8 to ten minutes, or until the mixture begins to set.
Meanwhile heat the grill (put oven on broil high setting). When the frittata has set put the pan in the oven under the grill or broiler for another 5 minutes or so until the face of the frittata is golden brown. Remove from oven and let rest for a minute or two then flip onto a plate, cut into wedges and serve. Can be served hot, warm and room temperature. Never serve cold from the fridge. Can be served with a lovely green salad. The top of the frittata should be sprinkled with fresh lemon juice and the torn leaves of cilantro.
Bread Salad
What You Need
Some left over crusty bread, torn into pieces soaked briefly in water and then squeezed gently to remove the water. You can use old heels of bread, even if they’ve dried out.
I/2 red onion diced small
2 to 3 ripe tomatoes (please buy vine ripen or hot house for more flavour). By the way, I hope you know, never to refrigerate a tomato. The cold environment of the fridge is fatal to flavour you paid so much for.
One can of ripe pitted, black olives. (Lindsey brand are good quality www.lindsayolives.com .
Any herb at hand, oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme… you get the idea.
Balsamic Vinegar (cheap is okay here, but remember you get what you pay for.) {More on Balsamic Vinegar another time.}
Extra Virgin Olive oil. (You know my song and dance on that).
Crystal Sea Salt
How to Throw It Together
Put the squeezed bread in a large bowl, and fluff up with a fork. Add the tomatoes, onions, Olives, and salt to taste. Toss the ingredients.
Add 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and 1/3 cup of olive oil. Toss all the ingredients again. Taste for seasoning and adjust.
Serve on a bed of lettuce with room temperature cheese.
See: easy, simple, and wonderful on a warm summer afternoon out on the deck.
You made it yourself; you used up old bread (don’t throw away those stale heals of bread) added fresh ingredients and enjoyed the open air. I defy you to find that in a mall close to home.
The Dark and Stormy Night Green Split Pea Soup
What You Need
1 lbs of split green peas
2 litres Beef or Chicken stock homemade or good quality store bought.
I medium onion diced
2 gloves of garlic crushed
1 stalk of celery finely chopped
A ham bone, pork hock, or I used chorizo sausage
2 litres of water
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
How to Throw it Together
Heat olive oil (enough to just cover the bottom of the pot) in a heavy pot (Cast Iron is good like Le Creuset
www.lecreuset.com)
Cook the onion and celery for about five minutes on medium heat. Add the garlic and sliced sausage. Let cook for about five more minutes. Add all the other ingredients at once; bring to a boil, stirring often, so the split peas do not stick to the bottom.
Reduce the heat and simmer for about 1 ½ hour. Stir occasionally, other wise go off and read a book. If the soup gets too thick, add water to thin. However, this should be a rib sticking soup.
When the peas have completely dissolved in to the soup you are ready to eat. Here you can be creative by adding some hot pepper, or a scoop of sour cream. It’s important to experiment and break free from the barrier of a recipe.
I served this with grilled bread rubbed with garlic, drizzled in olive oil, and dusted with sea salt.
Then sit at you dinning table and listen to the wind howl outside.
Heat olive oil (enough to just cover the bottom of the pot) in a heavy pot (Cast Iron is good like Le Creuset )Cook the onion and celery for about five minutes on medium heat. Add the garlic and sliced sausage. Let cook for about five more minutes. Add all the other ingredients at once; bring to a boil, stirring often, so the split peas do not stick to the bottom.Reduce the heat and simmer for about 1 ½ hour. Stir occasionally, other wise go off and read a book. If the soup gets too thick, add water to thin. However, this should be a rib sticking soup.When the peas have completely dissolved in to the soup you are ready to eat. Here you can be creative by adding some hot pepper, or a scoop of sour cream. It’s important to experiment and break free from the barrier of a recipe. I served this with grilled bread rubbed with garlic, drizzled in olive oil, and dusted with sea salt. Then sit at you dinning table and listen to the wind howl outside. Try this Vinaigrette Dressing on your favourite Salad 1 cup of olive oil ½ cup of white wine vinegar S tablespoons of Dijon mustard, Salt and Pepper to taste
Shake or whip.
Salad Suggestion: 2 fresh Romaine lettuces, with rough outer leaves removed, and torn into bit size pieces 2 vine ripened or hot house Tomatoes, fully ripe, please do not use field tomatoes or tomatoes that have been refrigerated, sliced into thin wedges
½ of a large English cucumber, seeds removed quartered and sliced ½ red onion thinly sliced and rings separated
Endive or Radicchio (a few leaves torn) 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and cored and thinly sliced
½ cup of walnut pieces roughly chopped, ¾ of a cup of feta cheese crumbled
Assemble and toss with dressing. Serve with grilled Tuscan Bread rubbed lightly with garlic, splashed with olive oil, and then dusted with flaked sea salt. Shrimp with Tomatoes and Chilli Pepper:
Source: The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking Marcella Hazan
What You Need
¼ cup of Extra Virgin Olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped onion
2 teaspoons chapped garlic
Chopped hot red chilli pepper
3 Tablespoons of chopped Italian Parsley
1 2/3 cups canned Italian Plum Tomatoes with juice chopped (or same fresh in season or hot house grown and ripe)
Salt
1 ½ to 2 pounds of shrimp
Lots of Grilled or oven browned slices of crusty bread for dipping into the sauce.
How to Throw it Together
Add olive oil and onion to the pan and turn on the heat to medium. Cook onion until translucent. Add the garlic, chopped chilli, and cook until just turning a golden colour. Add the parsley stir once or twice, and then add tomatoes. Stir to coat tomatoes with the oil, and then turn down to a steady simmer. Add the salt to taste. Simmer for twenty minutes stirring occasionally. Eventually the oil will break and float free from the tomatoes. Throw in the shrimp, stir to coat the shrimp with the oil/tomato mix and cook cover for three minutes only. Serve with crusty bread and a slightly chilled lighter red wine.
Sunday Pancakes
What You Need
I’ve made this recipe so many times I could do it in my sleep. Once you master the basic recipe, be creative I’ll give you some ideas.
Dry ingredients.
Shift together in a large mixing bowl, 2 cups (here we go all ready) either whole-wheat flour (the original recipe) or half and half or unbleached. Your choice. 3 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt, and one tablespoon of brown sugar. Shift.
In another bowl pour in 2 cup of milk (you decided how much butter fat) ½ cup of canola oil. Separate 3 eggs. The yolks go into the bowl of liquid the whites go into another bowl. In this order, whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Using the same beaters beat the liquid to blend. Then pour the liquid onto the flour mixture and stir quickly. The batter will be lumpy, that’s okay. Then gently fold in the egg whites. You get a very light and airy batter.
Cook on a griddle (I use a fairly large electric non stick griddle) but a fry pan will do.
Once brown on the bottom flip over, brown the other side and serve with your favourite syrup.
Variations. (Add blueberries, or bananas or black berries or…. You get the picture.)
Substitute: Soya milk for the milk. Research shows that Soya protein is, like way better for you. (Sorry I’m a Valley boy at heart.) You can also use half buttermilk. Lemon in the syrup cuts the sweetness. If you are watching your waist or some other bulging part of your anatomy, the sugar reduced syrups help. In addition, remember only on Sunday. The rest of the week is penance.
Serve with Sausages, or bacon, or nothing at all.
To pick it up a notch, serve a very chilled Asti Spumante from Italy or a real dry Spanish bubbly. To impress further, put a strawberry in the glass and float a mint leaf. See you can layer anything onto a basic truth.
Once the pancakes are consumed, push back the chair, have another cup of coffee, enjoy the company and the sunshine. What could be more perfect mid morning on a beautiful Sunday morning?
Good Food, Enjoyable Life
Tuscan Bread
Tuscan Bread
This is my Recipe for the Hearty Tuscan Bread. It uses no salt an no oil.
Make the Sponge:
1/2 cup of hot water
2 table spoons of yeast
1/2 cup of bread floor.
Mix in a medium bowl, sprinkle with I tablespoon more of bread flour, cover and let rest for ten minutes.
Making the Bread.
If you’ve never done this before I urge you to try making this bread directly on your counter instead of using a bowl. It’s easy and saves on clean up.
Mound five cups of flour on a large bread board or your counter top.
Make a well in the center.
Add the sponge yeast mix to the center and 1/2 a cup of hot water. (By hot I mean that you can feel the heat but it doesn’t scald.)
Using your bare hands, start to mix some of the flour into the liquid from the wall of the mound. Keep the well intact to hold the water. Once you have incorporated the flour into the mix, you have 1 1/4 cup of hot water to add slowly a bit at a time, while you mix in more flour from the wall of the well. You hand will be sticky with the dough but don’t worry.
Continue to incorporate all the water and start to Knead the bread. At this point you can clean your hands by rubbing them with the unincorporated flour. Continue to Knead the dough using a scrapper to pick up some of the sticky dough. You knead until all the flour on the board has been incorporated and you have a smooth, elastic dough.
Now you take a clean kitchen towel and sprinkle it with lots of flour.( I keep this towel in a plastic bag and use it over and over again.) Form the bread into a log then roll it up tightly in the towel. Let rise for about 45 minutes.
When it is just about double in bulk preheat the oven to 400 degrees. I use the bottom of a cookie tray and carefully unroll the bread onto the tray. On the lower rack of the oven I put a pan with ice cubes. Then I put the bread in to bake for 55 minutes. Do not open the oven during cooking time.
When the bread is done, wrap in in a clean towel and allow to cool completely before using.
This bread is best with your best olive oil and a wee dusting of sea salt.
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Oh my your Tuscan bread recipe sounds like a winner. I have made bread before but never just on a counter top and have never wrapped it in a towel – what an interesting method. I will have to try this out. I would like it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Linda Richardson recently posted..Graber Wood Shutters
Hi Linda,
Making bread right on the counter top is very Italian, I’ve been doing it so long now, I ‘m not sure I know how to mix in a bowl any more. It makes a very earth loaf and with Olive oil and balsamic vinegar approaches perfection.
Nick