Beans & Greens, Western New York Style

Monday, November 24, 2008

After doing some searching on the web, I've found this dish has a lot of names, even in Italian: Fagioli e Verdura, Zuppa di Fagioli e Erbezzone, Fave a Verdura. In this part of the country, it's been a long time side dish at most little "mom & pop" Italian restaurants - not pizza places, but the 6-table, front of somebody's house or strip mall eatery (you know, between the Chinese take-out place and the nail salon). These are the places to get a real taste of the old country - those recipes that have been handed down, and prepared by second or third generation kids and grandkids (who remember that their grandparents used to speak Italian when they didn't want the kids to know what they were saying).

That being said, I'm Italian and Sicilian by proxy - that is my husband is the one with the old recipes, and the Italian grandparents. He's also an incredible cook, with some of his own creations in his blog - in my faves in the sidebar here.

So here we go, Beans & Greens:

2 heads of Escarole (or one pre-cut bag)
1 cup of double-strength Chicken Broth (easiest when using bouillon)
4 cloves of Garlic
1 can of Cannellini Beans, with liquid (argh - forgot the ounces - it's the size of a soup can.)
2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
pinch of Salt
6 cups of Water, for blanching

Coarsely chop the escarole, as if you're making a salad. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot, adding the pinch of salt; blanch the escarole for 1 minute. Drain the escarole, and set aside.
Make your chicken broth - use double the amount of bouillon you would normally use, to end up with a full cup of liquid. (for example, 1 cup of water : 1 whole Knorr cube...but read your bouillon directions, as all cubes are not created equal!) Also set this aside.
Chop or mince the garlic; heat a large skillet with the olive oil; add the garlic when the oil is hot. Saute until the garlic starts to turn brown.
Add the chicken broth to the skillet - it will steam and sizzle, but just keep stirring it in with the garlic.
Add the blanched escarole and the cannellini beans (and the liquid), stir together. Let this simmer on a medium heat for about 5-7 minutes - until the beans are hot too.

This dish can be served as an appetizer, side dish, or lunch.

Food for the Serious Gamer

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Ok, to clarify, I'm talking about RPG's (Role-Playing Games, not military hardware).

In our house, "gaming" means our group comes over and spends hours either crowded around the dining room table, or sprawled out in the living room, eating, laughing, talking, drinking, and generally having a good time. Our daughter goes to Nona's for the afternoon, rejoins us for dinner, and has her bath and bedtime. And we continue until about 1am. This is how we spend our Saturdays - it's a good day.

In a traditional gaming group, everyone brings food. That way, there's no strain on the budget of the host. This of course, is born from the fact that when we started getting into RPGs, we were all college students and had no money.

In our current group, there are stand-by snacks - we always have Salt & Vinegar Chips, Garlic Bagel Chips, and Tortilla Chips and Salsa (Crazy Hot in season). That being said, I admit that gaming is not good for the waistline. Especially when you consider all of the other occasional treats (this is for those of you looking for ideas):

- Not-So-Famous Frank's Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Beefstick with Beer & Brat or Champagne mustard
- the Big Tub o' Cheeseballs
- various types of Licorice and Sour Candies
- homemade Holiday Cookies (in season, of course)

We do actually make an attempt every once in a while for healthy alternatives. Here are some from our current group, and my sister's former group as well:

- Whole Wheat Pita and Garlic Hummus
- Fresh-picked garden munchies, such as Green Beans, Peas and Cherry Tomatoes
- Assorted Greek Green Olives, stuffed with Garlic, Gorgonzola, Bleu Cheese (ok, maybe these should go on the "not good for you" list)
- Bagels (cream cheese is optional)
- Carrot Sticks and Celery

To complete the gaming experience; there's always LOTS of coffee.

It's not that we just eat until we explode when we get together - we have a lot of this stuff (especially the chips and candy) lying around for weeks at a time, when I finally have to clean out the pantry and put out a whole bunch of 1/4-full bags out. And we always have a real meal in with all of the munching - subs or panini, pizza & wings, sauce or chili...the usual group food experience.

Anybody out there with comments? What are your gaming groups' traditions - not just regarding food - anything!!!

Just a Quickie...

Friday, October 3, 2008

Here's my contribution to the various discussions of philosophy, both personal and otherwise:

Wiki NeoPaganism

Free your mind! Expand your consciousness! Shift your paradigm! And all those other cliches that mean exactly the same thing - don't get complacent. Explore your humanity!

Our Fra Diavolo Sauce from the Garden

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

OK, I realize this was not supposed to be the next post, but here it is anyway. And it's amended from yesterday, courtesy of my hubby, who put extra stuff in that I either didn't remember, or he did without my notice!

Last weekend we made pasta sauce from the tomatoes and peppers in our garden - not a lot, but about 5 quarts. So here's how we did it:

20 Cloves of Garlic, slivered, finely chopped or minced
1 Large Onion, chopped or diced into 1/4 - 1 inch pieces
Sweet Peppers - 1 each, Red and Green Bell, chopped or diced into 1/4 - 1 inch pieces
1 Italian Roaster Pepper, chopped or diced into 1/4 - 1 inch pieces
Hot Peppers - 1 each, Hungarian Yellow, Cayenne, Jalapeno, Portugal, Cherry Bomb; minced (with gloves on!)
6 Tbsp Olive Oil
18 Fresh Tomatoes of various kinds (red Roma, yellow Roma, Cherokee, Heirloom, Beefsteak), skinned and chopped or diced into 1/4 - 1 inch pieces
2 6 oz. cans of Tomato Paste
1/4 cup Marsala wine
6 Tbsp Dried Basil (this is a little difficult to judge because hubby was crushing by hand, but he's confident of this amount)
3/4 cup Knorr chicken stock (Completely dissolve 1 cube in 1 cup of water; add 3/4 of the cup of stock to the sauce. This step is, of course, optional for vegetarians.)
1/2 - 1 tsp Sugar (to taste)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp Salt (optional, to taste)
4 Bay Leaves, whole
1 cup Water (optional, if the sauce is too thick)

Skin the tomatoes ahead of time - you can blanch them in boiling water until the skins start to peel, which only takes about a minute. We let them cool off a bit, so we don't have to peel and chop hot tomatoes.

Preheat your large (10 quart) saucepan, no oil. Once the pan is hot, add the olive oil and stir to coat the bottom. Sauté garlic, onions, and all peppers in the olive oil. (For a milder Fra Diavolo, add the hot peppers a few minutes after you start the sauté process.) When the onions start to become transparent, add the tomatoes, wine and basil. Let this mixture boil until the tomatoes start to become less chunky and more mushy - until they start making a lot more liquid. Add 1 can of tomato paste, and stir until completely blended. Then add teaspoonfuls from the other can as needed. Let this all cook together about another 15-20 minutes - long enough to cook up your pasta of choice.

Obviously, this is a garden sauce - what's in it depends on what's ripe. You can always go to a farm market (in season) and pick out different things, but when it comes down to it, it's all tomatoes and peppers, so you can get creative or not! And the different colors are cool to use in salsa, but in sauce they all tend to become uniformly sauce colored. :o)

So have fun, and remember to warn your friends and family that this is a spicy one!

Veggie Garden, Round Two

Saturday, September 6, 2008

I didn't know I would have a round two this year, getting started so late, but apparently Mother Earth had a surprise for me.

We have eight tomato plants growing in my compost pile, two of which already have flowers on them. So we have a round two! The peas were really good this year (although kinda ugly), we're still getting green beans, and two of the late romaine are done and will make yummy salads this week. I love growing stuff!

I also love that my 3 1/2 year old loves to eat veggies out of the garden. She'll only help me pick peas if she gets to eat the ones she picks, but yesterday she had our cherry tomatoes, green beans (raw, of course) and raspberries for lunch. (And green Greek olives with garlic, but obviously we didn't grow those...) We have the only kid who asks for green beans at the grocery store instead of a cookie. It's very cool!

I'll have to pot the tomatoes. They won't last - our summer is almost over here. The temp is going into the 40's this weekend. Hear that, guys? If you still have stuff outside, cover it up.

The older tomatoes are gangbusters - we made chili this past weekend, and we'll have enough for sauce next weekend. BTW, when we make a pot of something, it's usually a huge pot (20 qt.), so technically I have enough tomatoes now for sauce, just a much smaller batch. :o)

So that's my garden update...next time: Food for the Serious Gamer.

My History Addiction, a.k.a. The Endless "WHY"

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

That's how it all started, really. There were so many things going on in the world - the various Middle East conflicts, the Troubles (yes, it was the 80's) - when I started to realize that I had no idea how these conflicts or situations had even come about, let alone why. The more I read about any given area, ethnicity or nation, the further back I had to go into that subject's history to find the root.

This, as I'm sure you can imagine, is a well that has no bottom. I got sucked in.

I started with Ireland, and what the deal was with the Six Counties. Why was there this exaggerated sectarianism? We have a great many religions in this country, and we all have to just accept that people follow different ones. So why didn't the Irish? I had to study the political and social systems of Northern Ireland. But the issues seemed (on one side) to stem from the presence of the British government and army. So I had to go back further, to the Irish fight for independence from Great Britain. But why did they want independence enough to fight for it, not once, but in many uprisings spanning a few centuries?

And that's just one country.

I've read about the creation of (the country of) Israel, and the 6 Day War; but I had to go back and read about the history of European and Turkish interaction with the various tribes of Arabs, and the westernization of the Arab world. (T.E. Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom gives an enlightening and odd insight - he's so obviously British, but really tried to understand the Arab mindset.) I've barely scratched the surface on this one.

But it did lead me to World War I. So how in the world could the assassination of one man lead to the most horrific of circumstances? I covered the history of Serbia and Bosnia, the Austrian-Hungarians, the formation of Imperial Germany, and then Kaiser Wilhelm II (grandson of Queen Victoria - wow, look up that bloodline). I took a side track into British naval development, and read about Jackie Fisher, David Beatty, and John Jellicoe, and a few of the major (naval) battles of the war. And now I'm on Winston Churchill's "The World Crisis; 1911 - 1918". Did you know part of that war was fought in Africa and in Asia? I do now...and I'll get to both African and Asian history too, eventually. :o)

Oh, and I'm reading about D-Day, and the various beach heads - the plans vs. the actual landings. Onward to World War II - my next project is the war in the Pacific, which I know almost nothing about, and Japan. The project after that is the Nixon years, which will get me to Vietnam. The one after that - Napoleon.

So why ask why? Why not?

The Green Beans Are In!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Yes, that sounds a little odd. Those who have had a garden - any kind, any size - can understand the excitement, satisfaction and relief that something is finally being produced, after all the work you put into it.

So the green bean crop has come in, as have the sugar ann peas. It was the second planting - the birds ate most of the seeds from the first one, and the deer polished off what was left. That was before we expanded to fence around the garden to six feet high - which my husband now calls "The Gulag". :o) It's been a really late crop year in this neighborhood (we're in upstate New York). Everything's about a month late, and I'm sure it's due to the late frost we had two days after Memorial Day weekend. That's when I lost my 6-week-old pumpkins and cucumbers.

But enough griping! In about a month, I'll have about 50 more tomatoes, and about 30 more hot peppers! More than enough for chili and sauce, and of course, more Crazy Hot Salsa. When we get to that point, I'll post more recipes (unless my hubby beats me to it - he's a great cook). The only problem with both sauce and chili, and salsa for that matter, is that the recipe changes based on what you have available, especially if you're using whatever you've grown that year.

For the record, here's my preferred method of cooking: have a certain flavor in mind, and keep adding stuff until you get to that flavor. Yeah, it's really seat-of-your-pants, but it's fun. Unfortunately, it makes it really challenging to share my recipes!

I do have an easy green bean dish, a la my hubby - steam the beans; saute some pressed garlic in olive oil; throw the beans in when they are mostly cooked, but still crunchy. It's tasty and healthy, and the garlic makes the house smell yummy. Hubby's good at throwing things together and coming up with amazing dishes, some of which he'll probably post on his own blog. I'm more the baker of the family, although this week I'm the "preserves and jelly maker" - blackberry and white grape, respectively.

I'm definitely Suzie Homemaker this week!

My Crazy Hot Fresh Salsa

Thursday, August 14, 2008

OK, it doesn't have to be crazy hot, we just like it that way. We have the hot peppers ready in our garden now, and will have tomatoes to go with them soon too. This is the stuff I made last weekend, for gaming food. (Hmmm, gaming food. That will have to be another post. :) )

Ingredients:

4 medium sized tomatoes (pick a juicy kind - save the Romas for sauce)
1/4 each of a yellow, red and green bell pepper
1/4 medium sized onion
1/2 lime
3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1/8 tsp dried cilantro

Hot Peppers: for Crazy Hot Salsa, last week I used 1 large red Portugal, 1 small red Cayenne, and 1 medium sized Jalapeno. (There was no reason for this combination in particular - it was what was ready in the garden at the time.) For tamer tastes, just use 2 Jalapenos.

This all makes about 4 cups of salsa - enough for 4 hungry people to polish off in one sitting.

Most of your veggies should be chopped into 1/4 inch pieces - small enough to fit into a "scoop". Chop up your tomatoes, onion and sweet peppers; add vinegars; squeeze out the lime right into the bowl (get the pulp too - use your fingers! Get messy! Woo!). Pulp your hot peppers in a processor, and add judiciously to the mixture. Keep tasting - when your eyes water, it's just about right.

Let your salsa sit out at room temp for about a 1/2 hour, to let the vinegar do its thing - then enjoy!

Nothing Profound, Just Hey, How Ya Doin'?

Thursday, August 7, 2008

I suppose it's what every blogger does - their first post is usually the icebreaker/introduction. To all my friends who read this, none of this stuff is news, but to all potential new friends and well-wishers, it makes sense to have an idea of who I am and why I feel the need to blog about my hobbies and life in general.

There really is no why - I just thought it would be fun.

So about me in general: I am a stay-at-home mom to a 3 year old beautiful girl, and a housewife to a wonderful hubby. Sounds like the classic Donna Reed thing, right? It is pretty cool, I'll be honest. Not that I'm old fashioned (or hopelessly brainwashed into the 50's mold), but being at home and raising my daughter seems like the right thing to be doing. We made the choice to have a child, and my responsibility is to raise her. It's an opportunity my husband and I have made for ourselves, and not without sacrifice.

Wow, didn't know I had a soapbox on that one. I guess I have an issue. As with all posts here, please feel free to comment. My husband and I both have that "discussion is always a good thing" mentality - for a detailed explanation of this, and a really good blog, visit his at http://thefrankspot.blogspot.com/. (It's in my fave blogs in the sidebar.)

OK, more about me, and what you can expect to find here: I'm a musician (rock & roll, baby); a gamer (PC - not console. I hate controllers. I was an Atari child, then an Apple lle user, back in the day.); an RPG player (fantasy and sci-fi); and a military history nut. Among other things. I also do some girlie stuff: Counted cross stitch, crochet, baking, gardening...and mom stuff. So this is kind of a kitchen sink blog. You may also find a few references to Wicca and paganism, politics, "greening", and other various global issues to name a few.

So, my friends, here I am! This is Reenie's Space, for opining, sharing and just plain hanging out.

Glad you're here!

Welcome to ReenieSpace!

Thursday, July 31, 2008

My blog's original title was going to be Geek Girls Have More Fun...obviously that's waaay to long to type in if I'm not bookmarked. So now you have more of an idea who I am...I'm Reenie. And I'm a geek, a girl, and a bit more.

There will be many posts to come - I have a really wide scattering of things that I enjoy and would like to have fun sharing. Face it, I'm a little weird. So here I am, off to find a really good template and some funky widgets to play with. See ya later.