Dancing Spoon

Limoncello for Summer!

Italy Delicious

Limoncello Means Summer!
by Ashley Bartner

Limoncello - ahh that means warm summer days in Italy are here! And after my husband returned from the market the other day with 2 crates overflowing with bright yellow fragrant Sorrento lemons - we knew we had some work to do!

Now I can't really cook to save my life - but somehow I've picked up the knack of making booze! So that is my contribution to the table —  after dinner drinks. Limoncello is one of the easiest liquors to make with only a few ingredients.

Like most Italian recipes, they vary all over Italy — especially on the length you soak the lemon rinds to the amount of sugar - so have fun with it and keep tasting it as you go! As the alcohol absorbs the flavors from the peel you will notice it turn to a beautiful golden yellow.
We used over 60 large lemons and yielded over 15 liters of limoncello!

Limoncello
Ingredients

Rinds of 6-7 lemons (no whites)
1/2 liter of pure alcohol
1 liter of water
500 gr. sugar

Directions

1. Soak the lemon rinds in alcohol for 10 days
2. Filter the lemon rinds.
3. Make a simple syrup with the sugar & water (warming the water on the stove & incorporating all the sugar).
4. Combine the simple syrup with the alcohol & mix.
5. Bottle & freeze.
Serve cold and enjoy!

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Ashley Bartner is living the foodie dream in Italy. Together with her Chef-husband Jason, they own and run La Tavola Marche  an organic farm, inn and cooking school in Central Italy's region of Le Marche.

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American Wild Shrimp

Ingredients Know Your

by J. Michael Wheeler
American Wild Shrimp
American wild shrimp, caught in Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf Coast waters, ranges from the sweet, small, delicate Maine Northern Pink, to the six-inch long and coral pink California Spot, to the four inch light brown-shelled Gulf of Mexico Brown.

We Americans consume more than a billion pounds of shrimp each year. While much of that shrimp is imported, almost a quarter of it is caught right off our own shores. And of the 200 million pounds of domestic shrimp brought to market, 95 percent is net-caught in open water by sustainable methods. Wild-caught American shrimp, moreover, is not just one species (pond-raised shrimp is a single species, Litopenaeus vannamei, commonly called Pacific white shrimp), but is a wide range of species.

I was introduced to the Northern Pink from Maine this past season and I was captivated by the small shrimp's intense, sweet flavors. (They reminded me somewhat of the French crevettes grises, the tiny shrimp served in the cafes such as the Brasserie Les Vapeurs  in Trouville, just across the bridge from Deauville in Normandy, France. The crevettes grises are so small in fact, that to eat them you need to learn the thumb technique: you more or less scrape the tiny creatures out of their shells.) The Northern Pink, also just called Maine Shrimp, have an intense flavor of rich sweetness like creamery butter. I went on a Maine Shrimp binge (the season lasts only from December to April) and sautéed them, steamed them, used them in pastas, salads, and delicate Asian dishes. And always cooked them for just a minute or two. These shrimp are also enjoyed raw!

Fresh local shrimp, often available only during a limited season, can be an eye-opening (and taste-bud-opening) experience. If you've only eaten the pink pond-raised variety seek out fresh domestic wild-caught shrimp. You might find yourself on a season shrimp binge too!

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The Simplicity of Bread

Simplified Culinary

by J. Michael Wheeler
Flour, Water, Yeast
Bread: “…the culinary domestication of…hard, bland seeds.” Harold McGee.

There’re a lot of different kinds of bread. There are ashcakes, baguettes, biscuits, bloomers, Boston brown breads, ciabattas, cobs, cottage loaves, crispbreads, granary loaves, harvest loaves, milk breads, potato breads, Vienna bread, white, marble rye, and whole-wheat breads.

There are breads made with wheat, rye, corn, barley, chocolate, fruits and veggies. There are flatbreads, braided breads, round loaves, square loaves, and sticks. There are even breads made just to hold a hot dog. Walk into a boulangerie in France and witness an entire world of breads.

That Staff of Life
But what really is bread? It’s just flour (usually wheat), water, and yeast. You mix, you knead, you let it rise. Shape it. Bake it. You got bread. Simple.

What’s Inside
You really need only three ingredients to make a loaf of bread.

1. Flour Grind up an edible grain fine enough, and you’ve got flour. While bread can be made from many types of flours, the main cereal grain used for bread is wheat because of its high protein (gluten) content.

For a grain to be made into bread, it must be milled (ground) into a flour fine enough to mix into a dough. The most primitive means of milling grain is the mortar and pestle, but the grind is too course for bread and is more suited to porridges and gruels.

2. Leavening You could mix flour and water together, shape it into a thin disk, and bake it; you’ll end up with a flatbread. To make a risen loaf, the “loaf of bread” loaf, you’ll need to add a rising agent such as yeast.

Yeasts are almost magical little single-celled plants. They’re a tiny, little fungus. In fact, one teaspoon contains hundreds of millions of yeast cells. The magic is that they make breads rise, grape juice turn to wine, and grains and water turn to beer.

And here’s the magic that’s important in bread making: yeast breathes air and exhales carbon dioxide, just like we do. Given a lot of air and some food (like flour), yeast grows fast and produces a lot of carbon dioxide. And it’s this gas that makes bread rise.

3. Water And water.

Super Bowl Fish Stew

Gloria Cooking With

by Gloria Bakst

Gary's Super Bowl Fish Stew
This delicious fish stew is easy to prepare. It's named for my friend Gary, my local fishmonger. He's always ready with a suggestion and sells only the freshest fish available. This is a great fish stew to try if you've never made one: it's easy, full of flavor, and cooks quickly. It tastes wonderful on a cold winter afternoon. I've been making this stew for the Super Bowl for the last few years, and it disappears fast! Use a good quality wine for the best flavor.

Super Bowl Fish Stew
Ingredients

1 red pepper
1 can artichoke hearts (14 ounces)
¼ lb. pearl onions
2-3 cups Chardonnay wine
1 large can whole peeled tomato 28 ounces
2 tablespoons cilantro
¼ teaspoon oregano
1 tablespoon capers
4 cloves garlic, minced
Salt, pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil (divided)
1 1/2 pound white fish (cod, mahi mahi, sole, halibut) can be a combination of different fish
½ pound scallops (sliced in half)

Directions

1. Roast red peppers, slice and place in broiler, skin side up until blackens, place in a
brown paper bag for 20 minutes. Peel skins off and dice the peppers.

2. Using a large wok shaped pan, sauté garlic in 2 teaspoons olive oil with pearl onions until slightly brown.

3. Add tomatoes, artichoke hearts, red peppers, wine, salt, pepper and cilantro and simmer for 20 minutes with cover on.

4. Sauté white fish in a non-stick frying pan sprayed with 1 teaspoon olive oil.  Place in casserole dish.

5. Add oregano and capers to the stew mixture, taste for seasoning adjustments.

6. Put the stew mixture in the casserole dish with the fish.

7. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, uncovered.

Recipe Yields: 103 grams carbohydrate, 112 grams protein, 14 grams fat

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Gloria's recipes and approach to a balanced lifestyle have been published by McGraw Hill in her book, ZonePerfect Cooking Made Easy. Her recipes have appeared in the Weight Watchers' Grilling Cookbook, Weight Watchers Meals in Minutes Cookbooks, The Jewish Vegetarian Year Cookbook, and The Healing the Heart Cookbook.

Gloria’s menus are always healthy and nutritious with an emphasis on flavor, freshness, and sophisticated tastes.

Have questions or comments? 

. To learn more about Gloria and her nutritional coaching go to her web site at Balanced Nutritional Lifestyles and at Gloria's Personal Chef.

If you like Gloria's recipes, you can buy her book, ZonePerfect Cooking Made Easy by Gloria Bakst at our Kitchen Store Click here .

Maine Sea Scallops

Ordinary Out of the

OOO by Kate Krukowski Gooding
Maine Sea Scallops with Tarragon and White Wine Sauce
It is scallop season here in Maine and the scallop haul looks plentiful so far this year. I picked up fresh scallops this morning. I first went to my spice and herb cabinet and then to the wine cellar. As I rummaged through our whites I found this 2007 bottle of white from Kindred Wines composed of 37% Marsanne, 37% Roussane and 26% Viognier grapes. I felt this would be perfect and so delectable, and it was.

Ingredients
Serves 2-4

1 pound Maine Sea Scallops
1 tablespoon olive oil
Sea Salt and Fresh Pepper, to taste
1/3 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup white wine
½ lemon, juiced
1 large shallot, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup butter
½ teaspoon tarragon, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven broiler. Cooking spray a 9 x9 baking dish.
2. Dry scallops, brush with olive oil and season with salt and black pepper. Place scallops in baking dish.
3. Combine chicken broth, white wine, lemon juice, garlic and shallots in a small skillet. Heat over medium heat until most of the liquid has been reduced. Stir in butter and tarragon.
4. Broil scallops 2 minutes per side or until scallops are opaque. Serve scallops hot with white wine sauce.

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You can find Kate Gooding's book, Black Fly Stew - Wild Maine Recipes at Foodie's Emporium! Click here. Kate has published three cookbooks: Wild Maine Recipes and Simple Gourmet Lamb with Side Dishes and Wine Pairings. She is currently is working on her one in the Black Fly Stew series – which carries and an international flair.

More information at www.blackflystew.com

And visit Foodie's Emporium for Unique Kitchen items!

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Eat Your (Winter) Salad

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
Eat Your (Winter) Salad
As temperatures remain in the chill zone for several more weeks, salads may not be on the menu. Instead soups, casseroles, and long braised stews are cooking. These typical winter comforts can be high in ‘energy density’ better known as calories. Unless you shovel all the snow in your street, that energy may be stored as fat on your body that will have to be ‘run off’ in the spring. One way to prevent storage of those sticky calories is to add a tasty light salad to a meal.

Salads can vary from just leafy greens to complete meals.

A green salad contains only green leafy vegetables (lettuce, spinach, arugula, mesculin, etc.). Simple salads have one main ingredient, raw or boiled, such as a tomato salad or a potato salad. When salads include grilled or roasted ingredients, they are referred to as warm salads. A complete meal salad offers elements typically expected in an entrée, such as a protein and a starch.

Lettuce is often the foundation of salads and you can usually find several varieties at your store. Here’s a Lettuce Rundown:

• Iceberg lettuce stays crispy after being cut or prepared.
• Bibb lettuce, also known as Boston lettuce, has pliable tender leaves with a velvety texture.
• Romaine lettuce has a strong green flavor and coarse deep green straight leaves.
• Leaf lettuce, red or green color is mild in flavor with crisp fluffy leaf edges.
• Mesculin is a mixture of baby greens.
• Arugula has a strong peppery taste and strong flavor, best used as an addition.

 A drizzle of dressing made with good quality oil and vinegar, herbs and spices embellishes salads’ unique flavors, textures and goodness. So, balance those wintry comfort foods with a light and refreshing salad.

For a great winter-time salad check out my Field of Greens with Black Grapes and Farmers Cheese!

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Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

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Field of Greens Salad

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
Field of Greens with Black Grapes and Farmers Cheese
This super quick and simple salad is an interesting and tasteful combination of a few ingredients. Simple and great tasting – what creative cooking should be about!

Field of Greens with Black Grapes and Farmers Cheese
Ingredients
Serves 4

Salad
6 cups mixed salad greens
2/3-cup (6 oz) Farmers Cheese, cubed, or cottage cheese, large curd
½ cup black grapes, seedless cut in half

Dressing
2 tablespoon raspberry vinegar or red wine vinegar
4-tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt   
Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Salad
1. Wash and tear lettuces. (Precut mixed salad greens are available at the supermarket but I prefer to mix my own. I mix green and red leaf lettuce, baby spinach and a bit of arugula or whatever is at hand. I find tender leaf greens work best.)

2. Layer greens on serving bowl. Add grapes and cheese. 

Dressing
3. Whisk together oil, raspberry vinegar, salt and pepper.
4. Pour over salad and Toss at the table.

Tip: Raspberry vinegar gives this salad a real kick; I find red wine vinegar makes a very good substitute.

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Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

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Got Better Tasting Milk?

Pastures Greener

by J. Michael Wheeler
Got Better Tasting Milk?
Great story/article on NPR Got (Good) Milk? Ask The Dairy Evangelist by John Burnett about  "the Che Guevara of the American dairy industry." Warren Taylor owns and runs Snowville Creamery, and he's trying to make milk the way it was made 40 years ago, when, he insists, it tasted better.

"I built Snowville Creamery to prove to the American dairy industry that the reason our children have had a 30-year continuous decline in their consumption of milk is not entirely Coke and Pepsi's fault, but because the dairy industry has been delivering a continuously declining quality of milk, in terms of its freshness and taste," Taylor says.

Taylor sells most of his milk within 48 hours, he doesn't homogenize it, and his milk is pasteurized at a lower temperature — 165 degrees. The industry standard is 175 degrees, which Taylor believes diminishes taste. Today, the popular "ultrahigh temperature" or "ultrapasteurized" milk is sterilized at 280 degrees, a process that trades flavor for long-distance marketing and long shelf life.

Listen to the Morning Edition Story Got (Good) Milk? Ask The Dairy Evangelist

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How to Choose the Right Pasta

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
How to Choose the Right Pasta
Even though all shapes and cuts of pasta are made from the same ingredients, flour, water and sometimes eggs the shape is key to the dish. The pasta’s role is to carry the sauce.  There are no set rules for pasta and sauce pairing but some combinations work better than others.

Sauces can be divided into six different types: meat sauce (ragu), seafood, vegetable, cream, garlic-oil, and uncooked. Pasta shapes have various names but they can be divided into four categories: long pasta (ribbons), short cuts, short tubes, and small types.

Long pasta such as spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine and angel hair are best with smooth sauces. Tomato and oil based sauces work well for these types of pasta. Marinara sauce is one that comes to mind. Fettuccine are especially suited for the Alfredo or cream sauce and angel hair pasta is perfect for a simple oil and garlic sauce (aglio-olio).

Short cuts of pasta shapes such as bow ties, spirals, and shells, are best suited for butter, cheese, tomato, meat, and vegetable based sauces; they hold every drop of these thicker sauces. Large shells are usually stuffed with a ricotta cheese mixture.

Short tubes types such as penne, rigatoni, and ziti tend to be sturdier and are perfect for meat, vegetable, and chunky tomato sauces. Manicotti shape is also an ideal shape for stuffing with a ricotta cheese mixture.

Small types, like pastina, ditalini, orzo are perfect for soups.

Whole-wheat pasta products follow the same general guidelines for pasta and sauce pairing.  

For practical purposes which pasta and sauce to combine depends largely on personal preference but adhering to this basic guide may result in a tastier and satisfying dish. 

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Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

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Keep Veggies Colorful

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
How to Keep Color, Texture, and Nutrients in Cooked Vegetables
Fresh vegetables are the foundation of both nutrition and exceptional meals. They provide our bodies with valuable vitamins and minerals and add color and texture to our meals. Bright beautiful greens, reds, oranges, purples, and yellows are a taste-treat for the eyes and their crunchy texture adds interest to every bite. The basic guidelines for cooking vegetables are: quick cooking, minimum water, and use of a lid. These simple guides will help retain color, texture, and nutrients.

The common methods for cooking vegetables, boiling, steaming, stir-frying and sautéing are all suitable for quick cooking. When boiling vegetables the first questions are always, “how much water to use,” and “should I cover the pot?” Vegetables are added to just enough boiling water to cover them. Cook them to fork-tender. The use of a lid depends on the flavor of the vegetables. Mild flavored vegetables such as carrots, corn, winter squash and potatoes should be cooked with the lid on. Stronger flavored vegetables such as green beans, broccoli and zucchini are best cooked without a lid which allows volatile compounds to escape. These last veggies should be cooked in water one-half to one inch above the vegetables. This dilutes the volatile compounds and prevents discoloration. 

In steaming, stir-frying and sautéing methods, vegetables should be cut to a uniform small size for quick, even cooking. Typically, stir-fry vegetables are cut into thin strips. Sautéing is suitable for tender or thinly sliced vegetables. Steaming is best for retaining water soluble vitamins regardless of a longer cooking time. 

These basic procedures ensure bright colored and crunchy textured vegetables with its many nutrients retained.

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Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

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