The year after I graduated college was particularly educational for me. Sounds ironic, but the education I’m referring to is the one I received in the kitchen, from a particularly talented roommate whom I shall refer to as the Chocolate Gamache. (Incidentally, she’s just started her own blog, so don’t be disappointed if you don’t see anything there yet – and look out for when she starts posting because she, besides being a fabulous cook, is also a talented writer.)

Ms. Chocolate Gamache taught me some of the fundamental basics of European/American cooking that I’ve relied on ever since. Under her tutelage, I learned how to make chicken stock, knead and bake bread, form a pie crust from scratch, and even craft chocolate truffles by hand.

You can imagine, then, how sweet it was when this dear friend came into town for a couple days and we got to make dinner together.

We didn’t do anything fancy: just penne tossed in a sautéed medley of vegetables from the most recent CSA share, including zucchini, green pepper, red onion, and garlic. (Ms. CG was especially excited about the garlic: “It smells like garlic!” she exclaimed upon sniffing a few unpeeled cloves in her hand… which made me wonder, why doesn’t uncooked garlic from the supermarket have an aroma?)

We also prepared half of the purple potatoes in the same style as before: microwaved a bit, then cut into wedges and pan-fried with minimal seasoning until golden. It didn’t bother either of us that we were making a “brunch” recipe for dinner. This time, I let them sit in the pan a little longer and get extra crispy.

The Chocolate Gamache has since returned to her home, but I hope she visits again. I’m grateful for her friendship over the years and the memories we’re still making!

This beautiful kale simply had to be a part of our dinner tonight.

After washing the kale and removing the center stem of each leaf, I sliced the kale into thin strips. Two cloves of garlic were sliced and fried until crisp in a generous amount of olive oil, then removed from the pan. I crumbled in a few sweet Italian sausages (squeezed out of their casings) and several pinches of red pepper flakes, then added the kale after the sausage browned.

While the sausage was cooking, I boiled some farfalle in salted water. The cooked pasta was tossed into the kale-sausage mixture, once the kale became tender and bright green. Golden garlic crisps and shaved parmigiano cheese topped each bowl of pasta.

Señor Habanero and I had the pleasure of preparing dinner for our special houseguest K-’Zee several evenings ago.

Knowing that we needed to make a substantial quantity of food in a short amount of time, we resolved that the Señor would relive his bachelor days and cook up the dinner he often made for his previous roommates: a big, hearty pan of baked ziti. (I happily demoted myself to sous-chef.)

After fixing upon a simple but very well-reviewed baked ziti recipe, the Señor made only a couple changes:

First, as a part of our ongoing commitment to do our part in relieving the global food crisis, we substituted ground turkey for the standard ground beef.

Second, we altered the recipe’s prescribed layering order, which would’ve otherwise yielded a cheesey but sauceless bottom layer. (Layering, as the Señor reminded me, is of utmost importance in the art of ziti-baking. After all, who would want to eat ziti that didn’t have cheese, filling, and sauce mingled throughout? Thankfully, this art comes naturally to him.)

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Baked Ziti

1 lb dry ziti pasta
1 onion, chopped
1 lb lean ground turkey
2, 26-oz jars tomato sauce
6 oz provolone cheese, sliced
1½ cups sour cream
6 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add ziti pasta, and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes; drain.

In a large skillet, brown onion and ground turkey over medium heat. Add tomato sauce, and simmer 15 minutes.

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Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter a 9″x13″ baking dish, (or cover bottom with a thin layer of tomato sauce).

Layer as follows:

• half of the ziti
• half of the sauce mixture
  
• Provolone cheese
• sour cream
• remaining half of the ziti
• mozzarella cheese
• remaining sauce mixture.
  

Top with grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cheeses are melted. Brown cheese under broiler, if desired.

The final product, with some zucchini sautéed at the last-minute. Dinner must include vegetables!

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The Señor and I had never heard of putting sour cream in baked ziti before, and were pleasantly surprised with the result. K-’Zee, who was discovered to be a real carb-lover, enjoyed a large portion that evening and raved about the ziti in the days following.

Here’s to you, K-’Zee! We hope you’re enjoying the long lazy days back home under the stars.

The Señor sometimes complains: “The hardest question to answer on a daily basis is the question of what to eat for dinner.” After reminding ourselves that not everyone is lucky enough to have this sort of problem, we usually take a look in our fridge to see what’s left, or poke around the internet for some inspiration.

Our latest bout of culinary indecision led us to a recipe for wild mushroom lasagne on epicurious.com, one of my favorite recipe websites. What’s great about this site is that all their recipes have been kitchen-tested at some point. What’s not so great is that a good number of their recipes call for ingredients that aren’t found in the average American kitchen.

Consequently, neither the Señor nor I were surprised to find that this lasagne called for dried porcini mushrooms. We were, however, a little shocked (and saddened) to find that none of the markets near us carried them, forcing us to substitute some fresh shiitake for the porcini.

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Zucchini was also a part of the lasagne filling, which, with the pasta, was held together by mozzarella and a homemade béchamel sauce.

I didn’t have a non-metal whisk for the béchamel (as our saucepan is nonstick), so I improvised:

That’s right: three pairs of chopsticks – and it worked just as well as a regular whisk.

What you see here isn’t the sauce as according to the original recipe. We heeded the advice of a savvy reviewer and substituted half of the milk with chicken stock, also adding a good squeeze of lemon juice for brightness.

The resulting slice of creamy carbohydrate goodness was very tasty, indeed – but definitely too salty. (I had raised an eyebrow at the instruction to add 1½ teaspoons of salt to the béchemel, after already using 2½ teaspoons in the mushroom filling, but decided to go ahead and make the recipe as written.) Any future renditions of this recipe will be made with much less salt.

Additionally, the béchemel came out so thick and creamy that we were very glad we didn’t only use milk to make it. That, if anything, would have been akin to asking for an early death.

Oh, but what a way to go.

My mom can cook. I suppose almost everyone thinks their mom’s food is the best they’ve ever had, but seriously, aside from the occasional burnt toast or overcooked bacon, my mom can cook. (So can my dad, for that matter.)

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Señor Habanero and I got to taste the fruit of her talents last weekend, at a dinner celebrating Dad being Dad. Mom – a.k.a. Mama Cherry Pepper – displayed her usual impeccable taste in fashioning the evening’s menu: rigatoni with caprese lobster salad, followed by raspberry sorbet garnished with a freshly baked brown-edged honey wafer cookie. The clean, fresh flavors and simplicity of the ingredients were a gentle nod to summer’s arrival.

The salad, which consisted of chopped fresh tomatoes, basil, mozarella bocconcini, extra virgin olive oil, and freshly cooked lobster, was prepared hours in advance, allowing the flavors to coalesce. Shortly before dinner was to be served, Mama Cherry Pepper cooked up the rigatoni in the leftover lobster water – something which did wonders for otherwise mundane pasta – then finished cooking it in olive oil that had been seasoned with garlic. The result? A subtly decadent yet unpretentious dinner that satisfied all Peppers present. (It would have been even more wonderful paired with a prosecco, but alas, there was none to be had.)

The rigatoni with caprese lobster salad recipe was Fortunato Nicotra’s 2007 response to Pamela Sherrid’s summer pasta salad (1996). Nicotra, who is executive chef at Felidia and a true Italian, was “horrified by the idea of such a dish” – but once his horror subsided, he went ahead and created his own updated spin on the recipe, most notably bringing the salad and the pasta together just before it’s served.

As for the brown-edged honey wafer cookie… that’s Mama Cherry Pepper’s secret recipe.

Do you have a favorite summertime recipe? Share it with us!