I come home from a quick trip to our nation's capital and what's in the fridge? Nothing. Just like everybody else's fridge after vacation. What do you make out of nothing? Gnocchi. Not the one made with the potatoes and the kneading and the rolling and the cutting. That's way too much work today, save that for company. These are tender nuggets based on pate a choux, a basic building block for pastry chefs and savory cooks alike. Pate choux is harder to pronounce than make. You should have everything you need on hand. Water, butter, flour, eggs and some seasonings. I like whole grain mustard, nutmeg and parmesan. These will freeze well and it's worth making more than you need just to keep the freezer happy.  

I made a quick one pan dish with wild leeks, fiddleheads and red pepper seasoned with wine, lemon and parsley. You can bake them with a little cream and tomato sauce or toss with wild mushrooms, fennel and broth or even go all Sandra Lee (don't forget the cocktails and tablescapes) and bake them with canned  lentil soup and frozen green beans, yummoo!

Confession: Our fridge wasn't exactly empty. The dog sitter who watches our place while we are out of town left a fridge full of wild leeks and fiddleheads. No you cannot have his name.

 Easy Gnocchi  serves 4 as a main course

• 6 oz water
• 1 stick unsalted butter (4oz)
• 1 cup flour
• 4 large eggs
• pinch of sea salt
• 1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
• 1 oz parmesean grated fresh is better and cheaper
• good pinch of nutmeg

Get a good sized pot of salted water boiling to cook the gnocchi

In a small heavy bottomed pan heat up the water with a good pinch of sea salt and butter over medium heat.

When the water / butter mixture is just beginning to boil add the flour all at once and stir with a heavy wooden spoon. Reduce heat to low and keep stirring for a couple minutes. You should see a light film on the bottom of pan.

Using the paddle attachment on your stand mixer, or by hand, add the eggs one at a time. Be sure the egg is fully incorporated before you add the next one. It will look all loose and slippery in the beginning then it will stiffen up as the egg gets absorbed. Repeat two more times. Before you add the last egg toss in the mustard, cheese and nutmeg. 

Using a pastry bag  (pastry bag tips at the end of post) with a plain tip about 3/4" diameter pipe the dough into the simmering water cutting at 1" intervals. This is easier than it sounds.

Simmer for 3 minutes and rest on a sheetpan. They will swell up and almost double in size when they are done. If the water is boiling too rapidly they may fall apart.  Cover pasta with a kitchen towel to keep from drying out. Repeat until all the dough is used. Easy.

 Pastry Bag Tips

• you can use a ziplock bag, just snip the corner
• fold the bag way over over your left hand and fill with your right. This will keep the bag clean and less product sticking to the bag
• no need to use a pastry tip for this
• squeeze all the product down to the bottom before you start
• hold the bag in your left hand and gently squeeze while you cut the gnocchi with a paring knife
• disposable bags are handy for this type of stuff

Cook like you mean it, G

Check out the veggies in the photo. I have a plan for each one. The asparagus are fat ones, I snap the stems where they want to break. The peppers have been quartered, seeds and pith removed with a paring knife and then peeled. I remove the soft punky seeds from the zukes and summer squash. The gills and stem have been removed from the mushrooms. The plum tomato is quartered and the white pith is cut out.  Broccoli is split down the stem focusing on even sized pieces of stem. Onions are cut in half and skin left on.  I choose slender supermodel carrots and split lengthwise. I wash all the veggies except the carrots. The carrots are organic and I don't want to wash the organic off. The water that clings to the green vegetables will help stem them a little while they grill.

I keep my fire in the center and use the edges for the slower cooking veggies. I close the lid when I'm not tending to the grill. I have the thicker stem ends facing towards the fire. This will keep the flower tips on the asparagus and broccoli from burning. I spray all the veg with a little non stick spray and season with sea salt.  After everything is grilled I cut into serving pieces and toss with the dressing then arrange on the plate.

The Chive dressing is a basic vinaigrette. 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. A great trick is to use the metric side of your measuring cup. It makes the 3 to 1 ratio really easy. 300 milliliters of oil 100 milliliters of vinegar. Way easier than cups and tablespoons.

I use my food processor for this. I add the mustard garlic and shallot into the bowl and slowly add the oil. Check out the feeding tube cover on your machine. I should have a small hole in it. Fill that with your oil and it will slowly incorporate the oil hands free. Cool.

Chive Dressing

• 1 Tablespoon mustard
• 1 Tablespoon mayo, homemade if you have any
• 2 Tablespoon honey
• 1 clove garlic crushed
• 1 shallot small dice
• 300 milliliter neutral oil, I used grapeseed, canola or peanut is fine, no EVOO
• 100 millileters vinegar, white wine or cider, no distilled vinegar
• 25 milliliter white wine
• Juice & zest of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 cup chives very small dice
• sea salt & white pepper to taste

Add first five ingredients in bowl of food processor

Slowly add oil, try the trick using your feeding tube cover described above

Add wine, vinegar and lemon juice and process another minute

Add chives, salt and pepper. Taste, taste and taste

We all know and love scallops wrapped in bacon. A staple served at weddings and fancy BBQ's all summer long. Like many a good thing we have managed all to often to beat this good idea to death. Fatty low quality bacon overlapping wet packed frozen scallops broiled just long enough so the bacon is still chewy and the scallop is overdone. Let's not forget the skewer running thru it to hold the bacon in place.

I want a crispy salty skin and a tender scallop with just a touch of seasoning. Prosciutto is the perfect tool for this. I start with dry sea scallops and toss them with smashed garlic, parsley, chopped capers and olive oil. Then I add some panko breadcrumbs to absorb any liquid that may purge from the scallop. Finish with thinly sliced prosciutto and I'm good.

Lets see how this went down in the Aga Kitchen

smash that garlic and drag that knife across it, a pinch of salt on the garlic will keep it from sticking to the knife

Scallop & Prosciutto

serves 2 as main course

• 1 lb *dry sea scallops side muscle removed
• 1 Tablespoon of capers chopped
• 1 clove of smashed garlic, about 1 teaspoon
• 1 teaspoon chopped parsley
• 1 Tablespoon of olive oil
• a few grinds of white pepper
• 1 Tablespoon of panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 proscuitto thinly sliced

In a steel bowl add the first six ingredients and toss until everything is evenly coated. Pay attention not to damage the scallops. I use a rubber spatula and lift and fold like a cake batter

Add bread crumbs and toss agin

Layout the prosciutto on a cutting board in strips the width of the scallop and the length of the slice. Approximately 1" x 5"

Now comes the fun part. Cooking them. You can brown them in a pan with a little butter and oil over moderate heat. You can broil or bake them in hot oven. If you do this add a little oil over the top to help with the browning. Your goal is a crisp skin and tender scallop. If you like grilled scallops try this recipe and omit the prosciutto. The panko crumbs will absorb any liquid and keep them from sticking to the grill. At $15.00 a lb you don't want any scallop getting stuck on the grates.

* You know how to cook, if not you wouldn't be checking out a cooking blog. I assume you know something about scallops. Like wet scallops are pumped with a sodium based liquid to get the weight up. It's legal cheating, no bueno. If the package does not say "dry sea scallops" assume they are wet. If you need to know more about wet vs dry scallop use the Google machine. Lots and lots of info there.

I was quite optomistic my writing would pick up once my son was back safely on American terra firma. Not true. While he was in Afgannyland Eileen and huddle pretty close to home and filled our time with domestic duties. With his return my bicycle and skiing took over. Cooking at home, not so much. Thanks for checking in and I feel a new post coming on as soon as I can get to the fish store.

Thanks and peace, G 

Busy days here at the Nooney household. Presidents week is a hectic at work, a 50 inch snowstorm came rolling thru and then our son finally got home from Afgannyland. Relief. I'm sure your life gets just as busy. When this happens to me my diet suffers. No planning, just grabbin' and goin'. Time to make a nice meal for me. Easy breezy and fun to eat. I dig using my hands over utensils any day.

Let's see what went down in the AgaKitchen.

Roast Veggies and Barley Pilaf slow roast tomatoes, baked onions, broccoli, yellow squash and carrots with a side of red pepper barley pilaf mixed with dark kidney beans.

• Slow roasted tomatoes, click here for recipe, takes about three hours but can be made ahead
• Baked onions, click here for recipe, or simply wash and bake at 375 for about an hour, do not peel
• Barley pilaf, sweat 1/2 an onion small dice and 1/2 a peeled red pepper small dice, add one cup barley. add 1/4 cup white wine and 2 cups stock or water. Bring to a boil and let simmer until all liquid is absorbed. I throw it in the oven for about 30 minutes. Don't forget to season as you go
• Roast broccoli and carrots. Cut broccolli into spears and carrots into sticks, drizzle with olive oil, season and into a 425 oven for about 10 minutes
• Roast summer squash, pick out a small one, split lengthwise, season and into an oiled baking pan and in the oven with the broccoli and carrots, about ten minutes. I put a cool cross hatch pattern on mine but I like to show off. Look closely and you can see them. I t also helps the heat penetrate a bit deeper
• Simple vinaigrette, I used capers and lemon, 3 to 1 oil to vinegar ratio with a splash of wine and mustard

That's it, add some nice greens, I used some cool living greens upland watercress, and build a plate full of great tasting fun to eat healthy vegan food that carnivores will love.

Welcome home Sgt Nooney!

My wife makes the best banana bread in the world. Then I went and bought an Aga. The banana bread suffered. It burned on top, raw in the center. All the wonderful things we heard about Agas being a bakers best friend went out the window. But she pressed on, learning the nuance, switching ovens, longer cooking times. The result: My wife's banana bread is now out of this world. The Aga will make all sides of the bread crispy and chewy with a moist center that is worthy of a throwdown with Bobby Flail and his gaggle of traveling cooks.

Originally she was going to do this post but a bout with the flu has kept her at bay. I'm sure she would have gone on about how I stepped in and tried to improve her recipe. I whipped the eggs, swapped out butter for oil, sifted and folded. No avail. I even made one with no sugar. She thinks it was a mistake on my part. I'm pretty sure I wanted to try it with no sugar, yeah that's it, no sugar. Me over think a recipe. Blasphemy!

Let's see how it went down in the Agakitchen

step one: get bananas

step two: mix it all up

Eileen's Banana Bread

pre heat your oven to 350, Aga owners use the Baking Oven & Simmer Oven

• 4 crazy rotten bananas, we hang them from our pot rack so they rot nice and even, when good and rotten you can freeze them
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup veg oil
• 2 cups flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup sugar,
• demerara sugar to sprinkle on top

Crush the bananas with a fork

Mix all dry ingredients in bowl

Add the wet ingredients and mix, don't over mix

Fill a greased loaf pan with the batter and sprinkle liberally with demerara sugar on top

Bake in a greased loaf pan for 90 minutes in a 350 oven. I use a 5 x 11 silicone pan

Check after an hour and cover with foil to protect from over browning. Isn't over browning really a fancy group of words for "burning"? Guilty. A skewer should come clean when you test the bread. Better to over cook than under cook. Over cooking will be a little more crusty.

Aga Instructions

With the rack on the floor bake for 30 minutes in the Baking Oven and an hour in the Simmer Oven. A skewer should come clean when you test the bread. Better to over cook than under cook. Over cooking will be a little more crusty.

step three: eat the bread

I know, I know, boiled chicken! I must be a brave cook to take on such a challenging topic. Get a pot, drop in a dirty bird (that's what my grandmother called chickens) and boil until done. Pretty easy.

Maybe we can introduce a little more flavor. Maybe we can involve the Aga while others are content to have the simmering kettle in plain sight. Maybe with proper technique we can transform the mundane into the sublime. Holy cow! That is some lofty prose. Hope I can back them up.

Let's see how it all went down in the AgaKitchen.

"that's a lot of pulled chicken there son, you gotta permit for that?"

Here's a shopping list.

• 1 whole quality chicken, resist the urge to buy one cut upfor you
• 1/4 of a turnip,  you should always have a turnip in the fridge anyways, peeled and cubed
• 4 celery stalks
• 1 leek split and cleaned
• 3carrot
• 1 onion
• Simon & Garfunkel herb collection, parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme. See if they come bundled as a poultry blend in the produce section,\
• 4 peppercorns & 2 bay leaf
• sea salt

Now lets cut up the chicken. First thing, rinse it off and pat it dry.

 Using a serrated knife and a sawing motion split the breast. Next cut out the back bone by sawing one side then the other. My wife said the picture wasn't very appetizing so sorry no pics of the back bone

 Split the leg  from the breast following the natural seam. Flip the leg over and look for a line of fat where the drumstick meets the thigh. Seperate the leg at the fat line.

Split the breast into two pieces of roughly equal size. And there you have it, a chicken cut into eight even pieces. This will help all them cook at equal times.

Let's Boil that Chicken

• Start with a large pot, I used an 8 qt stainless stock pot with a lid
• Add the chicken
•  Cover the chicken with enough cold water so it's 3 inches over the chicken 
• Bring it to a boil, bang the side of the pot occasionally and stir the contents a little. This will allow the impurities to rise up and float on the surface. As they collect on the surface we skim them away. It's Ok if you take a little water away with the scum. It hasn't simmered long enough to hold any flavor.
• After you have skimmed the stock add the veggies, herbs and spices. Don't forget the salt. I used about 1/2 a teaspoon.
• Let this simmer for 30 minutes. When you simmer some bubbles should be breaking the surface on a constant basis. Not rolling bubbles on the entire surface. Aga Tip: Put the stock pot with it's lid on in the Simmer Oven for 45 minutes.
• Remove chicken and strain the rich chicken broth
• Remove the chicken meat  once it's cool enough to handle. Discard any bones and skin.

Now What

 Here is where the fun starts. With the broth you can make soups & stews, the meat can be used for salads, Chinese food, burrito, chicken pot pie (that's what I did) chili etc...

I'll post the pot pie recipe in a few, it was way good.

Cook like you mean it, G

There are not really too many finites in cooking. I think that's one of the things that keeps me interested. Hard to believe, but I like being wrong. It means I learned something. I think a therapist would call it "growth". Here is a finite I can sink my teeth into. Write it down and commit to memory. Never cook a special meal that is so laden with fat and calories that you and your mate are too stuffed to "get busy". Makes the dinner date not so special anymore. "We ate and drank so much the only reason we unbuttoned our pants was to keep them from splitting apart" sounds more like something to forget.

Back to the shrimp. Love it when the fresh Maine shrimp come into season. I picked up some at my not so local (50 minutes away) fancy food store. Cucumbers and shellfish always taste good together. The textures play well off each other and respond similarly to seasoning. Both ingredients are delicate and can be overpowered by assertive type of seasonings like raw onion or garlic.

Let's see how this went down in the Agakitchen.

Cook the shrimp

• 3/4 lb of fresh Maine shrimp. Drop into simmering salted water for 90 seconds. Overcooking makes the shrimp mushy. No wine or lemon, the acid has a tendency to denature these small crustaceans. Drain and layout on a flat plate to cool. No need to rinse them under cold water. On a plate and in the fridge. Takes about 30 minutes to cool.

Make the dressing   mix everything together in bowl big enough to add the shrimp and a cucumber

• 3 Tablespoons of mayo. Homemade is really much better and crazy easy. I'll give you a recipe at the end of the post.
• 3 teaspoons of Heinz Chili Sauce. This not some Asian offshoot of Americas best loved condiment. It's ketchup for big boys, a little less sweet with a little more kick. Beats ketchup anyday.
• 1 teaspoon dry sherry
• 1 teaspoon of prepared horseradish. Be sure to squeeze the liquid out of it first.
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika, picks up the smoky notes in the sherry

Put it all together

• peel and quarter your cucumber, remove seeds with your knife tip, dice into medium size uniform pieces. About the same size as the shrimp. Salt the cukes
• toss cukes and shrimp in bowl with dressing, add a little chopped dill or parsley if you have some
• place some fancy greens (I use the herb blend in the winter) tossed with a little oil and vinegar on the plate
• mound the shrimp salad in the center
• D-U-N spells done, rhymes with fun!

As promised, mayonnaise

• 1 egg and 1 egg yolk
• 1T mustard
• 1T cider vinegar
• squeeze from 1/4 of a lemon
• 1 cup olive oil, not EVOO
• salt to taste
• pepper, white if you have it, again to taste
• 1 Tablespoon of hot hot water

Mix everything but the oil and water in a food processor. With the motor running slowly add the oil. After the oil add the hot water. Taste, season and taste again.

I loved cheese strudel. Strong words, chosen wisely, no typo, past tense. My strudel love affair began in the early days of my culinary training. The Chef would get raw milk fom the farm up the road and tie it in several layers of cheese cloth and hang it behind the line for a few days while it thickened up. This fresh cheese would get sweetened, seasoned and rolled in crispy strudel dough. It was "verboten" to eat anything we could sell but I did get to eat the ends off the long roll. Crispy and not too sweet with little bits of soft dried fruit. I had to be fast to get to them before the Chef did.

But how do I know I loved cheese strudel? There are a few dishes in my life that stand out on a personal note. My Nana's stuffed cabbage, a special salad dressing from Hopkins Inn and cheese strudel. These are dishes I was happy to never make again. The memory was enough. My oldest sister brings up stuffed cabbage every Christmas. Close, but still not my Nana's. Just as much love but still missing that little something. I get a taste of the salad dressing every few years. Again close but not like it use to be. I can close my eyes and still smell that salad dressing mixing in the Hobart. But no luck with the strudel. Never saw it anywhere. Memory would have to suffice.

A few years back I tasted some Quark cheese from the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company. This was pretty close to the cheese we would make from the fresh raw milk. It had a slight tang and very creamy. Time to take the leap and see if I could live up to my memories. This recipe is as good as I remember. Time to take the strudel off the list of things I love so much I won't cook. I still love it I just don't love it in that special way.

Special Note Lyndsey Vonn Olympic Downhill Champion used the cheese to help heal her badly bruised shin. The power of cheese. No lie, check it out. Vonn heal with Topfen

Let's see how this went down in the AgaKitchen.

 Cheese Strudel Filling

• 1 8oz package Quark cheese (try Vermont Butter & Cheese Company)
• 1 8oz package cream cheese
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup golden raisins or dried apricots small dice
• 1 1/2 to 2 Tablespoons semolina flour depending on how thick the quark is
• drop of vanilla

Place the Quark in a fine mesh strainer and let drain while you prepare the filling

Put cream cheese in a mixer with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed. Be sure to scrap down the sides a few times

Gradually add powdered sugar and blend

Add Quark to cream cheese and mix

Add egg yolks, semolina, dried fruit and vanilla to cream cheese and mix

Chill while you prepare the dough

Filo or Phylo  Dough

Phylo pastry is a good substitute for the labor intensive and mad skill required strudel dough. Just use lots of butter and follow my little trick.

• 1 package of filo pastry sheets
• 1 stick of butter melted
• 1/2 cup or so of finely ground nuts

Read the instructions on the package about thawing and keeping covered etc..

Layout a sheet of pastry and brush with warm butter. Lay another sheet next to it overlapping about 1/3 of the sheet. Brush well with butter.

Lay another sheet on top of the first two expanding the size of the rectangle you are making. Lay another one next to it covering the first layer completely.

Repeat this until you get 4 layers of pastry. If you skimp with butter it will get brittle and crack.

Sprinkle the ground nuts over the dough. If you look at the small picture above (right side) you can see the overlapping pastry and the nuts.

Add 1/2 the filling along the bottom third and roll like a burrito. Fold the ends in before you roll to prevent leaking.

Place on a baking sheet and into a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes or until the dough is nicely browned.

Let rest for 20 minutes before slicing. Do not cover any uneaten strudel. Leave it on a cutting board uncovered with a knife next to eat so you can just slice a little piece off when you walk by. Plus the dough will get soggy if you cover it.

I served mine with a hard cider poached pear filled with lingonberries. Awesome!

 Repeat with the remaining filling and dough.

That's it, enjoy and cook like you mean it, G

PS it makes an excellent breakfast pastry

Everyone knows Brussels sprouts are really baby cabbages. Just like all baby vegetables the flavor is a bit more pronounced then the big boy grown up version. Not as much water and seeds to dilute the taste. Brussels sprouts are no different. One of the cute things we fancy cooking people like to do is put a  twist on a classic. Ratatouille made with whole roasted baby vegetables, petite eggs Benedict made with quail eggs and mini English muffins or a baby lettuce salad. Who knew there was so much food money in babies, besides Jonathan Swift of course.

I tried making baby stuffed cabbage but my fingers are out of practice. Back in the day I'm pretty sure I could have rolled a mean baby stuffed cabbage. Next was  the traditional boiled dinner with baby baby potatoes, teeny tiny carrots, mini corned beef and and my baby boiled cabbage aka Brussel sprouts. It reminded me of a slogan from the nouvelle cuisine days. "Children's portions at adult prices".

How about a version of coleslaw, that should work. I sliced the Brussels sprouts nice and thin with my mad knife skills. Soaked them in some salted water and covered them with a warm dressing. Breezy easy and you really don't need many sprouts so the slicing goes pretty quick. You could use a thin slicing blade on your food processor and get good results.

Here's a blow by blow of how it went down in the AgaKitchen.

• 12 oz Brussels sprouts sliced thin
• 4 oz thick cut bacon julienne*
• 3 shallots or half a small red onion julienne
• 1 clove garlic smashed
• 1/4 cup dried fruit chopped small, I used cranberries
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 T Balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon cider vinegar
• salt & peppa

Boil 1 cup of water with 4 Tablespoons salt. Add one cup water to the salted water and pour into a bowl large enough to hold the sliced cabbage and the water/brine. Put the cabbage in the bowl and press down so it's all covered.

Crisp the bacon on a stove top stirring often or in the Roasting Oven for about 7 minutes if you are in the know and own an Aga.

Remove crisped bacon from fat, sweat shallot/onion in reserved bacon drippings. Add garlic, dried fruit, olive oil and Balsamic, let simmer for a minute. Remove from heat and add cider vinegar.

Drain the purged sprouts and squeeze as much excess water from them as you can. Toss with the dressing, add the reserved bacon, taste and season, taste and season, then taste and season one more time to be sure.

We had it over baked haddock with small dice of parsley potatoes and tomato sauce. Works well as a little canapé or on a bed of greens. Try it tossed with cannelloni beans over pasta.

* Garbage in, garbage out. Not all bacon is created equally. Spend the money and buy the good stuff. That factory farmed, water pumped and smoke seasoned bacon is truly a mystery meat. Better yet, raise a pig and smoke your own.

Cook like you mean it, peace, G