Once upon a time, I spent a weekend in Hyannis Port. I sat at a sidewalk cafe, basking in the July sun and trying to not look ridiculous as I cracked open the lobster I had ordered for dinner. I had no idea what I was doing and it was very hard to not make a mess (I had stubbornly refused the bib that the waiter had politely offered.) Then, out of nowhere, I saw Ted Kennedy walking down the street. Eating Ben and Jerry's. And suddenly I felt very silly. What was I doing struggling with a stupid lobster that had next to no meat in it when there was a Ben and Jerry's less than a block away? For the rest of the dinner, I could only concentrate on two things: "OMG Ted Kennedy is in town" and "I'm so getting ice cream when we're done here."

And that marks the last time I was ever able to think about lobster without also immediately thinking about Ted Kennedy. OK, OK, it also marks the last time I ever ate a whole lobster. I mean, why bother? They're good, but only because they're drowning in butter. They're a pain in the butt to eat, not elegant at all, and you'll finish dinner still starving since you only actually ate about 3 Tablespoons of food. Other full-sized menu items with lobster in them though? Like Connecticut-Style Lobster Rolls or Lobster Risotto? Sign me up. Pairing that lobster with pasta, in Lobster Mac and Cheese or Ravioli? Even better — much more lady-like to eat and much less chance of leaving the dinner table still starving.

Which is why I was so excited to see that Buitoni's new line of frozen dinners includes a shrimp & lobster ravioli. I had been searching high and low for this product for weeks, when I received an email from Foodbuzz asking for people to host a dinner party that pairs one of the new entrees with a vegetable side dish. Score! I immediately knew what I wanted to propose: I'm not really one for dinner parties and something about lobster ravioli seems so sexy to me that it seemed obvious to use the product as the basis for a quick and easy romantic weeknight in. Paired with a special yet simple-to-make salad dressed with homemade champagne vinaigrette and served with a glass of crisp champaign, this is the kind of meal that demands you turn the TV off and actually talk to each other. The whole meal can be prepared in 20 minutes (and with just one pot) and the price can't be beat. They make it so easy that there really isn't an excuse not to have a nice dinner at home. Why not celebrate a special occasion (oh,say, a tuesday) with a great meal like this?

Click to continue reading my thoughts on Buitoni's Shrimp & Lobster Ravioli and for my vinaigrette recipe -->

It's no secret that I love fennel, but I've been absolutely obsessed with the thought of making caramelized fennel ever since I first read about it over on The Tipsy Baker's blog months ago. I requested a copy of Ad Hoc at Home from the library and patiently waited for what seemed like forever to get the recipe. And then I had no idea what to make with it. I mean, I'm not exactly a meat and potatoes kind of girl. I don't do side dishes. And as presented in the book, caramelized fennel was most definitely a side dish. But then I had an idea: pasta. When I'm short on recipe inspiration I always turn to pasta, throwing in a combination of whatever looks good at the grocery store and whatever I have in the fridge. Caramelized fennel seemed like it would be a great jumping-off point for a summery vegetable pasta. And it was.

In addition to the fennel, I used a combination of eggplant, summer squash, red onions, and peas. I tasted the vegetables on their own and they were so delicate and fresh that it seemed like a shame to cove them up with a heavy sauce so I decided not to, and instead dressed the pasta with a little bit of ricotta and a touch of pesto (I had originally planned to use garlic and olive oil). It was perfect! I really liked the creaminess that the ricotta added — when you stir it into the hot pasta it melts and creates a light coating that reminds me a little of mac and cheese. The pesto perked the dish up without taking it over; you could tell it was there, but it certainly isn't a "pesto" dish by any means. Really it's just... good. Good when you first make it. Good the next day. Good hot. Good cold. I don't think I'll ever get tired of this one!

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Click to get the recipe for Orichette with Caramelized Fennel and Summer Vegetables -->

When I recently learned that there's a restaurant in New York City entirely devoted to these tender balls of ground meat simmered in sauce (The Meatball Shop), I immediately browsed their menu and decided what I would order if I went. And then I made it. (PS I went to the Shop this past weekend and it's every bit as wonderful as you'd expect!)

For as often as I make risotto, I never thought to pair it with red sauce. When I saw that The Meatball Shop offers it as a side dish though, I was immediately sold on the idea. It's such a nice change from pasta, and it gives the dish an entirely different feel. It makes spaghetti and meatballs seem like kids food; this is for grown ups. Meant to be eaten lazily by candle-light while drinking red wine, served with a side of bitter greens (in this case, with some sauteed broccoli rabe).

The parmesan risotto that I made was a very simple backdrop for the bold meatballs and sauce, but the cheese also gave it enough flavor to hold its own. It was delicious both mixed with the sauce and eaten plain. I took my time and cooked the risotto very slowly, allowing each grain of rice to absorb what seemed like an impossible amount of broth and resulting in the perfect al dente rice suspended in a rich and creamy sauce. If my risotto looks a little ark, it's because I used Kitchen Basics chicken stock. I really like the flavor of this stock, but it's a lot darker than other brands — it almost looks like beef stock when you pour it from the carton. If you use a different brand of stock (or homemade), your risotto will probably be whiter.

I also used a jar of Bertolli Spicy Arribata Sauce that I received a while back as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program. The sauce was really good — nice and thick and not too spicy. I added some crush red pepper to kick things up a bit. If you're using a different sauce, you might want to increase the amount of spice to your liking.

Click to continue reading Spicy Pork Meatballs with Parmesan Risotto -->

Every once in a while, I see orange and fennel salad in a magazine on a menu, or I hear people talking about it. I always thing it sounds fabulous, but I ever know what to serve it with. Plus, if you haven't noticed already, I don't prefer meals that contain multiple courses. Especially on weeknights when I don't have a ton of time to get dinner on the table — it's just easier to make one dish than it is to fiddle with a bunch of different components. Although I've never made the orange and fennel salad, the flavor profile always intrigued me and it's something tat I think about from time to time when planning my menu for the week.

I was recently thinking that I wanted to try making something new and different, so I used orange and fennel as my starting point and created this recipe, which I enjoyed a lot. Throwing everything in a pan and roasting it together makes this shrimp, orange, and fennel dish super easy to make and brings out the natural sweetness of the fennel and shrimp. I was originally planning to use orange zest in the butter and deglaze the pan with orange juice and white wine at the end — but at the last second, I decided to roast orange segments right along with the rest of it. I'd never heard of roasted oranges before and I wasn't sure if it would work, but it did and they were amazing. The oranges stayed nice and juicy in the oven, but the flavor became concentrated and vibrant — they added a really nice burst of fresh flavor to the dish. Instead of deglazing the pan with wine like I had planned, I decided to finish the dish with a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar to add a touch of acid and round out the flavors.

The result was so much better than I had ever imagined it would be! It was light and fresh, with the perfect amount of sharp bite from the citrus and fennel. Soft, creamy polenta was the perfect accompaniment to this dish, adding a little bit of bulk to the meal and providing a nice textural contrast. I quickly cooked up some instant polenta while the rest of the meal was in the oven (I like to prepare my polenta with chicken stock instead of water to give it a little more flavor).

This dish was great the first night and even better the next days at lunch — allowing the dish to rest gives the flavors a chance to meld and intensify. I ate my leftovers cold to prevent the shrimp for overcooking in the microwave, but you could also reheat it gently on the stovetop.

We don't make fritattas very often, and I really don't have a good excuse for that. They're healthy, super easy to make, and so much more convenient than omelets if you're cooking for a crowd. Since you don't have to worry about folding it, it's easy to pack it chock full of vegetables - I like to think of the egg as a binder for the veggies rather than as the main component of the dish.

You can use whatever vegetables you have around, which makes fritattas a great way to use up leftovers, but I always try to include eggplant when I make them. It doesn't sound like it would go well with eggs, but trust me — it's delicious. For this Mediterranean version, I also added some sun dried tomatoes, a few spoons full of pesto, and a light sprinkle of feta cheese. The resulting dish was phenomenal! The tomatoes and pesto really kicked things up a notch and made this fritatta special.

I forgot to put the spinach I had in it, so I made a little salad with it on the side. Since the fritatta was so savory, it went really well together. If you want to add more bulk to your eggs though, you can wilt the spinach with your vegetables.

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I remember for a while when I was young, we had linguini with clam sauce fairly often. I don't know if the traditional dish had a surge of popularity in the 80s-90s or what. A Google search really didn't provide me with any information on that. Anyway, we ate this stuff a lot when I was a kid. And then it sort of disappeared. To be honest, I totally forgot that it ever existed. Then, a few weeks ago, Shawn and I went out to a seafood restaurant. As we stood up to leave, I saw that one of the people at a table near us was eating a big bowl full of pasta with clams. It looked so good! The memory of white clam sauce came flooding back to me, and I knew that I would be making it in the near future.

When I sat down to try to create my recipe, a funny thing happen. I thought, "But clam sauce comes from a can!" and I got a little confused. Those of you who know me, know that I would never eat sauce from a can, so this really made me laugh. Of course you can buy a canned version of the sauce, but why do that when it's so easy to make from the simplest ingredients?

Really, this sauce is super simple to make and requires little more than wine, garlic, onion, and parsley. I did use some canned baby clams in their juice but, looking back on it, fish stock would have worked just as well to thin out the sauce. This linguini and clam sauce doesn't take long to make at all, and the use of fresh ingredients results in a dish that tastes so much better (and so much less salty!!) than anything you can get from a can.

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Copyright Lauren Keating © 2007-2010. This feed is for personal enjoyment only, and not for publication. Please contact lk@healthy-delicious.com if you are not reading this in a news aggregator, the site you are viewing is guilty of copyright infringement.

I had to laugh a little when I saw that this month's Daring Cooks Challenge was risotto. It doesn't take very much time on this blog to figure out that we love the stuff and I even have a whole categorydedicated to it! I took the opportunity to step a little out of my comfort zone and make a vegetarian meal based around the risotto itself rather than relying on lots of toppings. In fact, this simple and delicious risotto only makes three changes to the standard recipe - the addition of beets and the substitutions of goat cheese for parmesan and red wine for white.

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from Autralian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

In my recent blog survey, an overwhelming number of you asked for more information on how to create your own recipes. Risotto is the perfect place to start! Once you have the basics of making the base down, you can feel free to experiment with add-ins. The rice itself has a very subtle flavor, so just about any other ingredients will work - you can either mix them in, like I did here, for a more uniform flavor or you can serve them on top of the rice and let each individual flavor speak for itself. Pick an ingredient that you want to use, and think about what other flavors work well with it. Those will be the main components of your dish - 2 or 3 should be plenty. Then you can change up the items in the base to go along with those flavors. There are three main areas where you can make changes - the aromatics, the wine, and the cheese. For example, if you're going for a French theme you might want to use shallots instead of onion and ramps go great with other springtime flavors like peas or asparagus. If you're using a bold flavor like sliced steak and don't care about the risotto being a creamy white, you can consider using red wine. And you can use whatever cheese you think will go best with the flavors that you're using.

For this dish, I took my inspiration from one of my favorite salads - simple greens dressed with beets and crumbled chevre. Since I had an open bottle of pinot noir and I didn't care about the dish being pristine white so I used that instead of white wine. The flavor of the beets were strong enough that they masked the wine and either would probably have worked just as well. Upon the first taste, I could tell that it needed something - the flavors were kind of muddled and heavy. Lots of freshly ground pepper did the trick! I've found that whenever a recipe I'm creating seems too dull, it's because it needs either more acidity or more spice. Something like a splash of lemon juice, a simple vinaigrette, or some black pepper is usually all you need to perk the flavors right up!

What would flavors would you use in your risotto?

Back in December, I had the opportunity to watch a cooking demonstration by the chef from a local Italian restaurant. He made all sorts of wonderful dishes, but the one that impressed me the most was a briny, saucy pasta dish. Looking back I can't remember if his version actually had feta in it or not, but the idea of a soft, salty cheese with pasta has been in the back of my head ever since. If you follow me on twitter, you'll know that last week I just did not feel like cooking. At all. I didn't really feel like eating either. It was simple, delicious recipes like this one that got me through to week - this takes very little effort to make, but the result is impressive.(And don't worry, I made an awesome grocery list for this week and am back to my normal self!)

While you could use your favorite jarred sauce for this to make it even easier, I find that it's just as easy to make my own. Pasta sauce really is a snap to make and it taste so much better than store-bought! San Marzano tomatoes were on sale, so I used those and I recommend that you do too. I find them to be slightly sweeter and less acidic than other canned tomatoes, resulting in a sauce that tastes like you made it from ripe, summer tomatoes. If you can't find San Marzano's (they can be difficult to find and are pretty pricey if they aren't on sale), feel free to use your favorite brand of peeled plum tomatoes.

I served my sauce on top of spinach linguini. No real reason for that. I don't think it tastes any different than plain pasta and the nutritional differences are negligible. Honestly, I just like the way that it looks. Green pasta is so much more fun to eat than beige pasta! [....]

When it's done right, I love tiramisu. But when it's not done right, it can be pretty disappointing - too sweet and too sloppy. So it goes without saying that I had mixed feeling when I saw that the February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession. As part of the challenge, Aparna and Deeba also required that we make our own mascarpone and lady fingers. It seemed like a lot of work for such an iffy outcome, and since I've been so exhausted lately I seriously considered not participating in the challenge. But some of my friends on twitter were encouraging, promising that despite the length of the recipe and the time involved, the dish wasn't complicated to make and that it was some of the best tiramisu they've ever had.

I'm glad I took their advice - this was hands down one of my favorite daring bakers challenges to date. The tiramisu was surprisingly easy to make and it tasted fabulous! Not too sweet (though I did cut down on the sugar slightly) with the perfect balance of cream to cake. It also freezes really well, which is great because keeping it readily accessible in the fridge would be way too dangerous! Keeping it in the freezer allows me to thaw just the amount that I want - and makes it difficult to go back for a second slice! I would definitely make this recipe again - it would be the perfect ending to a dinner party. [....]

The other day I didn't have anything planned to make for dinner, so I asked Shawn to pick something up for me to cook. came home to find some beautiful scallops (look at the size of those babies!), arborio rice, pecorino romano, thyme, and peas. It really shouldn't have surprised me that he bought ingredients for risotto - I'm pretty sure he would be blissfully happy if I made it every day! Plain risotto with scallops seemed kind of boring to me though, so I looked around the kitchen for something else to add. I came across a grapefruit and figured "why not?" I knew that scallops and grapefruit went great together, and even though I was a little nervous about how the flavor would play out in a risotto I figured it was worth a shot.

I shouldn't have doubted myself. I had forgotten how great lemon zest is in risotto, and the grapefruit acted in the same way. The sharp citrus cuts through the creamy rice and lifts the flavor of the whole dish. I was also nervous about the fruit being to bitter, but the natural sweetness of the scallops - and the little bit of brown butter that I decided to use - provided just the right amount of balance.