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Semolina Flatbread with Arugula, Mint, and Spinach Pesto

25 Jun

Generally, when I gather together the elements to make a meal, I attempt to strike a reasonably healthy balance of protein, grain, and vegetable.  In the winter months, you’ll see a fair amount of polenta and pasta sitting in for the grain component, their hearty and warm properties providing the perfect bit of comfort one seeks to counteract the cold and drizzly weather.  In the summertime, when the sun beckons and our meals are almost exclusively eaten outdoors, we eat hunks of bread with our slices of cheese and heaping plates of garden vegetables.  And during the intervening weeks, which means now, when the sun appears only sporadically and our days are often still drenched with the cold and the wet, our meals are punctuated with foods that exist in between, not too hot, not too cold, but a rather Baby Bear-like middle ground.

A flatbread like this, hearty and crisp with semolina, slathered with a pert combination of spicy arugula, fresh mint, and lots of lemon zest, is the perfect example of the type of accompaniment I like with my meals on these days of in between.  It’s a great companion for soups (cold weather), or salads (warm weather), and it packs up perfectly for a picnic (dreamy weather).  Paired with yogurt-marinated chicken skewers and some slices of fresh raw bell pepper, it was the defining element of a springtime dinner last week, on a day that couldn’t figure out if it wanted to be rainy or sunny, so it decided to be both several times over.

But, guess what else?  This flatbread has a bit of a secret weapon.  In addition to making a fine side dish at lunch or dinner, it is also able to transform itself, with the addition of a single ingredient, into a fantastic breakfast meal.  By simply cracking some eggs onto the flatbread midway through cooking, your flatbread emerges from the oven as a cross between a breakfast pizza and the most flavorful eggs and toast you’ve ever had.  Don’t want to bother with making the dough in the morning then sitting around waiting for it to rise?  I don’t blame you.  Luckily, you can get around it by throwing the dough together the night before, then leaving it to rise in the refrigerator overnight.  Come morning, you’re one step closer to fresh flatbread dotted with baked eggs, and some great leftovers for lunch or dinner, rain or shine.

Last Year: Mango and Avocado Salsa

Semolina Flatbread with Arugula, Mint, and Spinach Pesto Recipe

Semolina Flatbread:

¾ cup warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 ½ cups bread flour

½ cup semolina flour

pinch sea salt

1 teaspoon rapid rise yeast

In a small bowl, or in a measuring cup, whisk together the warm water, olive oil, and honey.

In a large bowl, whisk together bread flour, semolina flour, pinch of salt, and rapid rise yeast.  Pour the water mixture into the flour mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon.  When the ingredients are well combined (the mixture will look a bit shaggy), start kneading the dough, still in the bowl, with your hands.  Knead the dough, turning it over onto itself several times, until it is smooth and somewhat shiny, about 3-4 minutes total.  Form the dough into a ball.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top of the dough, then roll it around in the bowl to coat it all over with oil.  Cover the bowl with a sheet of plastic wrap or a moistened towel, and leave the dough to rise for 1 ½ to 2 hours, until it is large and puffy and more than doubled in size.  Alternately, you can cover the bowl with plastic wrap and then place it in the refrigerator to rise overnight.

While the dough is rising, make the pesto.

Arugula, Mint, and Spinach Pesto

½ cup packed fresh arugula

¼ sup packed fresh mint leaves

1 cup packed fresh spinach

1 large clove garlic, roughly smashed

1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons roasted almonds, chopped, sliced, or slivered

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus another ¼ cup for topping the flatbread after it bakes

salt and pepper to taste

In the bowl of a food processor or in a blender, combine arugula, mint, spinach, garlic, lemon zest, almonds, olive oil, and ¼ cup of Parmesan cheese.  Add salt and pepper to taste (the cheese is a bit salty already, so you won’t require much additional salt).  Process or bend the ingredients until they are fully incorporated and have turned into a rich paste.  You will have to stop several times to scrape down the sides of the bowl or blender, but it is necessary in order to make sure all the ingredients are properly combined.

Makes about ¾ cup pesto.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place a pizza stone or heavy baking sheet on the lower middle rack of the oven as it preheats.

Line a rimless or overturned baking sheet with a large piece of parchment paper, and set aside.

When the dough has fully risen (if you are taking the dough out of the refrigerator after it has risen overnight, allow it to rest on the counter for 20-30 minutes so it can lose some of its refrigerator chill and is easier to work with), turn it out onto a well-floured surface.  Using your hands, shape the dough into a 14-inch by 10-inch rectangle, gently stretching and poking the dough in order to coerce it into taking shape.  Place the rectangle of dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheet.  Spread the pesto over the surface of the dough, leaving a ½-inch border around the edges.

Slide the dough, still on its sheet of parchment paper, onto the heated baking sheet or pizza stone in the oven.  Bake for 10 minutes, until the edges of the dough are golden brown and slightly puffed.

If adding eggs to your flatbread, crack 3 to 4 eggs into a bowl.  After the flatbread has baked for 5 minutes, carefully pour the eggs onto the flatbread, directing the eggs as far from the edges as possible (if the eggs are too close to the edges they will simply slide off onto the hot baking sheet, which makes an incredible mess).  Bake the flatbread for an additional 5 minutes, until the egg whites are fully cooked and the egg yolks are slightly runny.  If you’d like your eggs firmer, add them a minute sooner so they have time to bake a minute longer.

Remove flatbread onto a wire rack to cool slightly.  Sprinkle with remaining ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese.  When bread has cooled a bit, cut into squares and serve.

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Roasted Broccoli Pasta Salad

18 Jun

Not too long ago, we attended our first potluck picnic of the season.  This, along with the season’s inaugural bike ride downtown to picnic on the waterfront, and the breaking down of my willpower when it comes to filling my belly with fresh strawberries and lemon cream, heralds the dawn of a new eating season in our household.  Summer foods are upon us.

Most summer foods can be easily spotted and categorized as such.  You have fruit (strawberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarines), you have picnic food (stuffed sandwiches, a simple baguette with a round of cheese to accompany it), and you have what is quite possibly the most misunderstood of summer foods, the pasta salad.

I know what you are thinking: Pasta salad is misunderstood?  And my answer is yes, horribly so.  Most pasta salads are improperly seasoned, unbearably bland, kept in the refrigerator until their starches seize and become unpleasantly pasty, and/or so inappropriately covered with mayonnaise that one can’t even begin to identify the flecks of vegetables that are hiding within.  Which brings me to another point of contention, that being the utterly unbalanced proportion of pasta to vegetables.  Look, I know it’s a pasta salad, but does that really mean that 90% of what comprises the salad really have to be just pasta?

Perhaps I am alone in my displeasure, but, were it not for my feelings of malcontent, I never would have come up with the incredibly tasty and fulfilling pasta salad to see here.  In it, big chunks of broccoli get roasted in olive oil with generous slivers of garlic and a hearty pinch of red pepper flakes.  The pasta, before meeting up with the roasted broccoli, is bathed in a splash of lemon juice, soaking up the brightness as it cools to a perfectly toothsome texture.  A final toss with a confetti of lemon zest and a blizzard of finely grated, wonderfully sharp Pecorino Romano cheese, and it is done.  And, thankfully you are done—done eating dull, limp pasta salads, and done hunting for something delicious and new to take to a potluck and be welcomed with open arms.

Last Year: How to Make Smoked Salmon at Home–this is by far the most popular post on here, and for good reason.

Roasted Broccoli Pasta Salad Recipe

1 pound broccoli florets, trimmed into equally-sized pieces with a long portion of stems intact

3 large cloves of garlic, cut into thin slices

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

salt to taste

1 pound pasta

¼ cup finely grated or chopped lemon zest

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

On a large baking sheet, combine broccoli, sliced garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil, and salt to taste.  Toss everything together until uniformly coated in olive oil.  Roast broccoli and garlic in the center of the oven for 20 minutes, until both the broccoli and garlic have developed a nice layer of caramelization.  Remove from oven, stir a bit, then set aside to cool slightly.

While the broccoli is roasting, cook the pasta in salted water until tender.  Drain pasta in a colander, then toss with lemon juice while still hot.  Allow to sit for 5 minutes to cool a bit, tossing frequently to aid in cooling and to keep the pasta from sticking together.

When both the pasta and broccoli are no longer piping hot, but still warm, pour the pasta into a large bowl.  Scrape the broccoli, along with every bit of olive oil and garlic left on the baking sheet, onto the pasta.  Add lemon zest and cheese, then toss thoroughly to combine.  Serve at room temperature.

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Stuffed Picnic Sandwich with Olive Tapenade

28 May

The sun was out.  For a solid two weeks, the sun was out.  We ate meals outdoors, we made ice cream, we rode our bikes, and sometimes, if we played our cards right, we did all three of those things in one day.  It was a glorious time.  Spring, as I have mentioned one or two or a million times before, is usually a rather difficult time here in the Pacific Northwest.  The rain is persistent, the temperature rarely creeps above a somewhat insulting 60 degrees, and the fact that one nearly always spends Memorial Day weekend wearing rain boots starts to seem sort of grueling.

But a week and a half ago?  Oh, let’s talk about that.  Temperatures crept near the 90s, the sun was shining each and every day, and we spent as much time outdoors as humanly possible.  Perhaps best of all, we made the season’s inaugural bike ride downtown to have a picnic dinner on the waterfront.  My love of picnics remains unrivalled, so this event was a spectacularly big deal for me.  I spent most of the morning thinking about what I would pack for our picnic, and by the time I picked up my son from school, the answer was clear.  What do you take on a very important picnic?  Why, you take the World’s Best Picnic Sandwich, of course.

Why the World’s Best?  Let’s start with the construction, an ingenious method of hollowing out a good portion of a hearty round loaf of artisan bread in order to create a cozy little nest for the sandwich’s fillings.  The fillings in question can be altered to satisfy the tastes of the people eating the sandwich, but I nearly always go for the solid combination of provolone cheese, peppered turkey, roasted peppers, lots of leafy greens, and, though I forgot them this time around, big, juicy slices of tomato.  However, let me back up just one moment and mention what might be the crowning achievement of this sandwich: the olive tapenade.  Wonderfully flavorful, the tapenade is the secret weapon of this sandwich, harmonizing tastes and textures and adding that little bit of something extra that makes this sandwich a real standout.

All in all, this is a sandwich of note, and its presence at our first waterfront picnic of the season could not have been more appreciated.  All we need now is some more warm weather so we can have more picnics (because right now it is 52 degrees and raining and…let’s not talk about it).

Last Year: Orecchiette with Grated Garlic and Tomato

Stuffed Picnic Sandwich with Olive Tapenade Recipe

This sandwich has a lot in common with a traditional muffalleta sandwich, though the tapenade in this sandwich is decidedly less loud than the standard olive salad found in a muffaletta.  This sandwich also lacks the selection of meats found in a muffaletta, though you can certainly swap out a variety of meats depending on your tastes and desires.  One step that I find is crucial in making this sandwich really sing is the rest time.  Wrapping your sandwich, either in slices or as one whole loaf, and allowing it to rest in the refrigerator for a bit really makes the flavors meld together and create a nearly perfect finished product that is worthy of the Sandwich Hall of Fame (is that not a real thing?  I think that should be a real thing).

1 loaf French boule or another round artisan-style loaf of bread

6 ounces thinly-sliced pepper turkey (or another meat or combination of meats of your choice)

3 ounces provolone cheese (or another good sandwich cheese)

1 roasted pepper, sliced into strips, top and seeds removed (instructions on how to roast a pepper can be found here)

1 large handful of raw spinach eaves

1 large handful of arugula leaves

Olive Tapenade

1/3 cup chopped kalamata olives

1 large clove garlic, smashed and finely minced

1 tablespoon minced Italian parsley leaves

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

freshly ground black pepper

optional: a nice glug of balsamic vinegar

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients and mix together thoroughly.  Add pepper to taste, and add balsamic vinegar if you think the tapenade needs a bit of an acidic kick (some people think the balsamic fights with the taste of the rest of the sandwich, so adding it is entirely optional).

To construct sandwich, cut the loaf of bread in half lengthwise.  Tear out half an inch to one inch of the soft middle of the bread, leaving the bottom of the loaf shallower an the top (leaving a deeper space in the top of the loaf allows you to pile your sandwich ingredients higher with less threat of the sandwich collapsing).  You can reserve the torn-out bread in a plastic bag and freeze it for another use (bread brumbs, romesco sauce, etc.).

Spread the insides of both the top and bottom bread halves with the olive tapenade.  On the bottom half, add a handful of greens, then layer on the turkey, the cheese, and the roasted pepper slices.  Add another handful of greens, then place the top half of the loaf (the lid) over everything.  Slice the loaf into 6 or 8 individual sandwiches, depending on how large you want your servings to be.  Wrap each sandwich tightly in plastic wrap, and allow to rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour (though letting everything rest longer, even overnight, produces a smoother-tasting, more flavorful sandwich).

Makes 6 or 8 individual sandwiches.  Or 4 individual sandwiches.  Or, heck, even 2 (in which case, I salute you).

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