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RUSTIC LENTIL SOUP - ebook
I wanted to make a couple soups from the book, hoping to have leftover that would get me through the meals in the upcoming days where I didn’t want to cook. I messed around with the technique in this recipe because I made it in the instant pot. The recipe has you sauté pancetta and bacon in a mix of olive oil and butter. I used some tempeh bacon here, and sautéed until crisp. You then are to add garlic. I reversed the order here and added the onion, celery, and carrot first, then the garlic after a few minutes. The recipe calls for sausage, which you are to cook separately and add at the end. I did not do this. Instead, I added it after the aromatics. I used Beyond hot Italian.
The recipe has you peel and chop a couple plum tomatoes (fresh, I presume), then instructs you to “strain the chopped tomatoes through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the pulp to extract as much liquid as possible”. I found this instructing puzzling. What was I going for here? What came out the other side of the sieve? Or the pulp left behind? Reading on, it turns out you want the pulp left behind (the liquid is not used). I totally ignored all of this. I used canned tomatoes, because it’s winter. I used four, not two, and I chopped them and added them plus the juice around them to the pot after cooking the sausage. Bay leaves, salt, fresh thyme, fresh oregano, red pepper flakes, and black pepper also go in at this time. The quantity of fresh herbs called for is miniscule - 1/2 teaspoon each for the thyme and oregano. That seems more like a quantity you would use for dried herbs, and hardly worth the walk to the garden. So I used what seemed to me a more reasonable amount, not measured, but if it were it would be in tablespoons, not teaspoons. I also upped the red pepper flakes.
The recipe then has you add the lentils and cook for 45 minutes (that would be stovetop), then add potatoes and cook for 15 minutes more. I’ve cooked plenty of lentil soup in the Instant Pot, and never have an issue cooking the lentils and potatoes together, so I added both at once. Then I added vegetable stock. I reduced the volume of liquid to 4 cups because I was cooking in the pressure cooker. The recipe actually has you add stock before you add the herbs, tomatoes, and lentils, but I wanted my herbs going into the sauté, so I held the stock until this point. I cooked this for 15 minutes on high pressure, then did a natural release.
I used black beluga lentils, because I didn’t have any green lentils, and I had gone to the store for the last time until after the holiday. So my soup is darker. The black lentils also hold their shape more, similar to the French du Puy, and I give them a little longer cooking time. I also upped the quantity of the lentils just a bit, using 1 3/4 cups instead of the 1 1/2 called for.
We really liked this soup. I think it’s my favorite thing from the book so far. Only complaint is that we didn’t have as much left over as I hoped. Not enough for a one-dish meal for the two of us, but it will be good alongside some other leftovers.
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PASTA E FAGIOLI SOUP - ebook
This was the other soup I made in my quest for ready-made meals. Once again, I made this in the Instant Pot, and once again, I messed with the method. Starting with the beans, which I did not soak (I never do). The recipe calls for a 2-quart saucepan, which just has to be a misprint. I did everything in my 6-quart IP. You start by sautéing aromatics (garlic, onion, carrots, celery) plus pancetta. I omitted the latter. You then add your herbs (fresh oregano, rosemary, and bay leaves), and I added the called for tomatoes at this point (the recipe has you add them after the stock and beans). You add stock (and a neck bone, which I omitted). Season with salt and peppper.
The beans then go in. I cooked under pressure for 50 minutes. After removing the lid, I switched the pot back to sauté and brought the soup to a simmer. A mistake I made with this soup was not reducing the amount of stock - I used the full 8 cups called for. But I simmered with the lid off to reduce it a bit, then added the pasta and continued simmering with the lid off. I would have liked it a little thicker, but it was fine as is.
The soup is finished with parmesan cheese and garnished with parsley. We liked this soup quite a bit. I have to say we enjoyed the lentil soup more, but this one was fine. I wanted it to be a little denser. More beans! Part of that is because I used the full amount of liquid, but I still wanted it be a little heartier. I actually made this soup before I made the lentil soup, so wanting more beans here was my reason for upping the lentils a bit in the other recipe. And remembering to use less liquid!
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this one is on my list for next week
Thanks for the helpful report, and another one of your famous photos of beautiful pottery!
(FRESH) FETTUCINE WITH WILD MUSHROOM SAUCE - ebook
I didn’t use fresh fettuccine from this, but I got my hands on some Le Veneziane fettucce which have a delicate texture. For the mushrooms, my intent was to combine chantarelles from the freezer with fresh oyster and dried porcini. But I accidentally started soaking lobster mushrooms instead of porcini. I decided to go ahead and use the lobster mushrooms, and to use the porcini called for, along with the chanterelles, and I skipped the oysters. Overall, the quantity of mushrooms I used was well over what the recipe calls for.
You create a mushrooms stock by boiling chicken broth with some of the rehydrated porcinis, a bay leaf, and thyme sprigs. You strain this and keep the broth. In a sauté pan, you cook garlic in some oil, then add basil, parsley, fresh oregano, and all the fresh and rehydrated mushrooms. Season with S&P. Add your broth and some chopped canned tomatoes. For the tomatoes, I used what was left of a large can I’ve been working my way through. There were only a couple tomatoes but a lot of juice. I just used it all, then simmered for longer to get the sauce to the right consistency. You toss the sauce and some butter and cheese with your just-cooked pasta, and finish with a drizzle of truffle oil.
I love all the mushrooms, so it’s no surprise I liked this dish a lot. It was rich, without the mushrooms being overpowered. The truffle oil was a nice finishing touch.
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GRILLED PORTOBELLO SALAD - ebook
This was one of those recipes that I feel could be better written. You make a marinade by combining olive oil with garlic, parsley, rosemary, oregano, salt and pepper. You are supposed to put the cleaned and trimmed mushrooms in a baking dish and pour the marinade over, then turn to coat. There really isn’t enough marinade to do that. So I poured a bit in each cap, and then rubbed it on the convex side of the mushroom. After sitting for 20 minutes, the mushrooms are supposed to be baked for 15 minutes. At this point you are supposed to have pan juices which you can strain. I did not. I baked the mushrooms for another 10 minutes to get a modest amount of juice in the inside of each mushroom cap. I poured this off into a small bowl (didn’t bother to strain). Balsamic vinegar gets whisked into this to form the dressing for the salad.
The mushrooms then get grilled. I did this over lump charcoal on my mini green egg. The mushrooms go on top of your salad greens, and it all gets drizzled with the dressing. It doesn’t say to slice the dressing, but it made sense to me to do so. The recipe was annoying because it didn’t exactly work as written, but the finished result was very good. The mushrooms came out just done and very steak-like. I served this with the eggplant parm from the book.
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EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA - ebook
There is something pictured with this recipe that looks like lasagne. I don’t know if it is supposed to be this eggplant parm, or if the picture is of something else. This IS a layered dish, but there is no way it will come out looking like this picture if you follow the instructions.
You start out by slicing eggplant, which gets dipped in flour, then in a mixture of egg with cheese, parsley and salt. The slices then get deep-fried. I used rice flour for the dredging, and for the egg, used a mix of Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer (important because it has psyllium husk in it) and aquafaba. I diluted this with water to get the consistency I wanted (and had to add a bit more water at times as it continued to thicken). You then layer the Carmine’s marinara sauce with the eggplant, and cheese in between each layer. You do this in a loaf pan. It is to be covered with foil and baked, then is supposed to be inverted onto a platter to serve. Here is where you lose any chance of it looking like the photo, which has most certainly not been inverted. I did not invert the pan, but instead just cut the eggplant parm into sections and pried them out with a spatula. Not the neatest, but good enough. I should note that I also did not cook the dish covered. I somehow missed seeing that instruction, even as I made a mental note that I felt it SHOULD be covered for at least part of the cooking. Anyway, it was fine the way I did it, except that vegan cheese melts best in a moist environment, so the cheese on top didn’t melt like it would have covered.
This was tasty, but will not become a go-to version for me. Cooking this way, you end up with overcooked eggplant (and I like my eggplant well done) and soggy eggplant. I really don’t see the point in coating and frying the eggplant when you are going to layer it with sauce like this. Picture above with the mushroom salad.
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PORK CHOPS WITH SWEET AND HOT VINEGAR PEPPERS - ebook
This recipe for pork chops appealed to me for the pickled-ness of it, and I had the idea that I could convert it to use tempeh instead of pork chops. Tempeh has a strong earthy flavor, and the sweet, sour, and hot of this preparation would be a good counterpart to it.
I cut the tempeh into triangular tiles, half the thickness of the slab of tempeh. In the recipe, the pork chops are to be brined, and I made the brine as written and brined the tempeh overnight. The recipe calls for brining the pork for 48 hours, but that would have been overkill for tempeh, which will absorb the brine more readily. The brined chops get pan-fried. I dried off the tempeh and deep-fried it (faster and easier).
For the sauce, you just sauté garlic in olive oil. You then add sweet and hot pickled peppers, chicken broth, and some juice from both the sweet and hot peppers. You finish the sauce with butter, basil, and parsley. The chops (or in my case tempeh), then gets added to the sauce and turned until coated.
There is no salt called for except for what is in the brine, but this dish is very salty. Might not be as salty with pork chops, but the tempeh really soaks up the brine, plus the pickle juice is super salty. In the future, I would probably add less of the pickle juice than I did (as is, I did not add the full 14 Tbs called for). Fortunately, I served this with a risotto that was not very salty, and eating them together worked to offset the saltiness. Rich, soft risotto was also a nice compliment to the tangy tempeh. Overall, I’d say this dish was a success, I’d just tweak it a bit next time.
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The mushroom salad sounds great but also like a lot of work. Something I’d love if someone else prepared it - like if I’d ordered it off a menu. Did you feel that way? Of course, you are not shy about daunting kitchen tasks, for sure!! 
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It seemed a bit of pain for “just” a salad. But most of it was hands off, so in hindsight not that bad and it was quite satisfying.
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STUFFED PORK FILLET (loin roast) w/ BROCCOLI RABE, FONTINA, AND PINE NUTS w/CREAMY POLENTA, pg. 191
This dish looks as spectacular as it tastes. It takes a bit to prepare, but the flavors are just WOW. We like it the first night as a main dish over polenta. And we’ve enjoyed it between a bun as a riff on a cuban-type sandwich.
I didn’t have a tenderloin. I had a regular loin roast instead and just ended up using that.
The oven is preheated to 350.
The broccoli rabe is blanched. Then sautéed in olive oil with garlic, red pepper flakes, and sun-dried tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste.
To prep the loin, you butterfly it and then use a mallet to pound it thin. I double butterflied my regular loin roast so it would pound out thin enough. I don’t think I got it as thin as I should’ve.
After you pound out the roast, you salt and pepper both sides. You lay prosciutto slices down leaving one inch borders. Then top with the broccoli rabe mixture. The recipe tells you to lay slices of fontina on top, but I grated my fontina. Then you roll it tightly and tie it off. You rub rosemary into the roast.
You brown all the sides and then bake it for 12 minutes or until the internal temp reaches 155 F. I cooked mine for longer as my roast was much thicker.
While the roast is baking I made the creamy polenta, which I will include as a separate recipe.
After the roast is out of the oven, pour off all but a tablespoon of the pan drippings. Add basil, parsley, and shallots to a saute pan. Cook a minute. Add wine. Increase heat and cook for a few seconds. Add in whole tomatoes crushed by hand. Add chicken stock and what they refer to as a brown gravy, which is a base sauce. I just used veal demi-glace. Season to taste. Bring to a boil for a couple of minutes.
Slice the pork roll and serve it over the creamy polenta topped with the pan gravy.
The roll sliced so you can see the insides.
The roast right after it came out of the oven.
The dish plated.
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CREAMY POLENTA, pg. 247
Water, chicken stock, bay leaves, olive oil, and salt are boiled. Polenta is added while whisking constantly.
Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pot.
When polenta is shiny and begins to pull away from the sides, add in butter and romano cheese.
Taste and season, if needed.
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I attempted this but lost motivation a few nights in a row. I tossed the pork tenderloin (stuffed and eventually roasted) but I did freeze the sauce. I have another tenderloin in the freezer so I am going to get around to doing it soon. Glad to hear you enjoyed it.
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I’ve had a version of this made with pork ribs, and it was delicious. I see what you mean about tempeh soaking up more salt.
The January 2024 thread is up.
CARMINE’S LASAGNA p. 126
I don’t have the energy to type out all of the steps to make this thing. It is basically a lasagna that uses homemade bolognese, their marinara sauce, boiled lasagna noodles, and a ricotta/cheese mixture that incorporates parsley.
It is a lot of work so I always make 2 at once. One for the event and then one for the freezer. It is an incredibly rich and hearty dish but also delicious. Always a crowd-pleaser and something that people have paid me to make for their parties.
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You know, the Barilla no boil pasta sheets taste almost like fresh pasta to me; ATK says to soak them in warm water a couple of minutes first.
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Agreed. I’m a big fan of the no-boil noodles. Makes assembling so much easier. Barilla makes a GF version and several of the other GF brands I like are no-boil as well. And it’s a win-win because the texture of the no-boil noodles is far superior (imho) to kind that you boil.
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I’ve used no-boil noodles for various lasagnas including the one in The Herbal Garden cookbook. I have nothing against them. I’ve also made the Carmine’s lasagna with homemade fresh pasta sheets.
You haven’t lived until you spend an hour making pasta sheets, go to the bathroom for 30 seconds, and return to them with cat paw prints all over them. hahahahaha Ugh!
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