I’ve known Giuliano, Lael and the girls since their early days of the blog. The Hazan’s live in Sarasota, Florida, just a few minutes hop down the interstate from us. If you’re not familiar with Giuliano, I’m sure you’ve heard of his mother, Italian cooking doyenne, Marcella Hazan, whom I was lucky enough to spend time with a couple of years ago.

Giuliano, Lael and I have crossed paths many times, though usually it’s is a quick “hi!” at the IACP conferences or other blogging conferences. We’ve dined at their house and they at ours – I’m in love with their girls, Gabriella and Michela, who love their pastas almost as much as their papa.

Giuliano just came out with a new book, Hazan Family Favorites, featuring recipes from his childhood and new recipes that he loves to make at home with the girls. The dishes are unfussy and simple to prepare – most recipes have just a handful of ingredients and 3 steps. My favorite part of the book was reading the family stories and watching Giuliano grow up with Marcella and Victor through photos!

This morning’s eggs from our hens and a giant zucchini from the garden went into the Frittata with Zucchini. We added a super-ripe heirloom tomato, also from our garden and finished it off with goat cheese crumbles (sadly, not from our homestead, though one day….maybe…a goat or two)

Zucchini Frittata Recipe

The zucchini is best sliced on a mandolin – the one I *love* is the handheld mandolin by Oxo for $14.99. It’s lightweight, under $15 and requires no setting up.

Gorgeous heirloom tomato from my garden – I don’t remember the name of this tomato, but it ripens to a deep dark red/black color.

The onions are caramelized with just a pinch of sugar. The sugar helps speed up the caramelization by half the time.

Sliced zucchini is added to the pan and cooked until soft.

Those pretty eggs are from the hens – we used 5 of them. Whisk the eggs well.

In the pan, pour in the eggs, throw on the tomato slices and dot with crumbled goat cheese. Bake.

Great for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 21 comments

When we first moved into our house, I had carved out a small patch of land for the herb garden. Since the irrigation was a little messed up, the gardenette was close to a hose and small enough to be manageable daily.

Once the main garden was built last October, I had transferred all my energy, plants and herbs into raised beds and sort of neglected the temporary gardenette. Most everything had died (that patch is still without automatic irrigation) except for the weeds and the fennel plants, which had miraculously thrived with no attention and no water. I have no idea what super-strain of fennel this is, but heck, I’m grateful.

I’ve got more fennel than I can ever eat myself, so I’ve been inserting both the bulb and the fragrant fronds into salads and grilling recipes when we entertain. People say fennel is licorice-y, but it’s so much more than that. Fennel is refreshing, slightly minty with the fragrance and “mist” of anise. I think the word, “licorice flavor” is too strong of a description — I don’t taste the licorice flavor straight on my tongue, it’s more of an overall delicate aroma. Kind of like how fresh basil, mint or dill tastes in your mouth.

Fennel is perfect to pair with miso, honey and orange. It’s an herb that can stand on its own – the fresh crunch of the bulb and don’t forget the lovely fronds, which are equally fragrant with a more floral slant.

If you’re not a big fan of fennel – I’ve got substitutes for you in the recipe.

Miso Salmon with Orange and Fennel Recipe

This is another miso inspired recipe I’ve developed for my client, Miso & Easy, a ready-to-use miso paste. Use any miso paste that you wish!

Here’s what ya need:

The first step is to marinate your salmon (or any fish of your choice) with miso, honey, ginger, sake (or white wine – or omit the alcohol altogether). Marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour or even overnight is fine.

On a baking sheet, layer sliced fennel bulb and a few orange slices. Substitute onion for the fennel, omit the orange if you’d like.

Lay the marinated salmon on top.

Top with fennel fronds – or fresh herb of your choice (basil, parsley, etc) You can even top it with more orange slices if you want.

Bake until done and serve with rice.

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 13 comments

Usually sometime during the holiday, we’ll bake an entire bone-in ham.

Split pea and ham soup is so surprisingly easy, especially in a pressure cooker. It takes about 3 minutes of chopping, 4 minutes of pressure cooking time and then 20 minutes to just let it sit. My friend, Wendy taught me her version, which actually comes from the back of the package of split peas!

No soaking necessary (which makes the recipe even simpler!)

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments

We recently went to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner and guess what? They have Cauliflower Mashed “Potatoes”!! It looks like mashed potatoes, its texture is similar to mashed potatoes and the taste is mashed potato-y enough to make those who are on the Paleo diet or low carb diet happy.

When I made it for the family, they loved it but all agreed that we shouldn’t call it Mashed “Potatoes” but just simply Mashed Cauliflower – it’s tasty on its own merit without having to degrade it to a quote-potato-end quote status.

I like the mashed cauliflower to be a little chunky (like I like my mashed potatoes) so instead of using an immersion blender, I just use a potato masher to mash and stir with the butter and sour cream.

Top with chives (or whatever you normally like on your mashed potatoes) and you’ve got one heck of a side dish.

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 22 comments

The once empty garage-turned-playroom-turned-moving boxes storage-area-turned-photography studio is now finally looking lived in, played in, worked in. In other words, it’s a mess and I love it. The wire shelving that holds my props is now about to collapse from the weight of an etsy and Fishs Eddy binge.

Wooden boards are strewn across the bottom shelves, delicate stoneware bowls of all different sizes and shapes are stacked so high that it almost looks comical.

One itty bitty puff of air to one single 3″ bowl and it will leeeeeeeeean to the left and come crashing down onto the next tower of bowls.

These gorgeous Caribbean-blue glass bowls were sold in a package of 6, and thank goodness, because that itty bitty puff of air really did happen, as well as the teetering tower of bowls and now I only have 2 of these lovely bowls left, which happen to be perfect for serving mussels. Spicy, steaming, mussels in a miso broth.

Spicy Steamed Mussels in Miso Broth

This recipe will take you 20 minutes tops, even if you move slow as a sloth. This recipe is created for my client, Miso & Easy.

The ingredients:

The first step is to cook the onions for a couple of minutes. I add the garlic after the onions have been cooking to prevent the garlic from burning.  Yes, I’m cooking in a wok because it’s big, wide and has a nice see-through lid.

Pour in your broth, add the miso. Toss in those tomatoes!

Leafy vegetables and mussels go in, cover and let it cook. Just a few minutes is all it takes.

That glass lid? Awesome. Let’s me check the progress of the mussels without opening the lid. And psssst….it’s a Steamy Kitchen Wok! Yes! I designed my own wok and it’s currently in production – eeeeks! I’m excited, can’t wait to show you once they come in and we can start selling them in the store.

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 19 comments

I’ve known Béa, author of La Tartine Gourmande blog, ever since I first started blogging. The first time I saw her blog, I was just blown away – every photo made me daydream that I was on some kind of gorgeous picnic in heaven! (they do have picnics in heaven right?!)

All these years of corresponding with Béa via email, blog, twitter and facebook, it was only last year that I finally got to meet her in person. We were both in London to speak at Food Blogger Connect - Béa brought her family along and I got to squeeze the baby toes of sleeping Lulu. Sweetness!

Béa just came out with her book, La Tartine Gourmande Cookbook and it’s every bit of picnic in heaven as her blog. There are so many fresh and healthy recipes that I want to try: Beet and Quinoa Tabouli, Potato Nests with Gingered Crab and Crustless mini Quiches, just to name a few. All the recipes are gluten-free.

The dish I chose to make first is crazy simple – French Carrot Salad is grated carrot tossed with lemon juice and olive oil. I’ve added fresh shaved fennel from my garden and plucked a few fennel fronds to add to the salad.

It’s absolutely refreshing. Picnic in heaven food.

French Carrot Fennel Salad

Fennel in my garden:

Have a taste of the fennel fronds (the green stuff) and it’s amazing – AH-MAZE-ING raw in salads. Don’t throw it away! In fact, I grown the fennel in the garden specifically for the fronds. Every time I make salad, I just pinch one little stem off and mince for the salad.

The bulb, shaved and added to a salad gives an nice crunch and light anise flavor.

Slice the bulbs very thinly – I used a mandoline, but feel free to just use a sharp chef’s knife.

Whisk together the dressing ingredients – lemon juice, salt, pepper, olive oil, fresh parsley and a few pinches of fennel fronds.

Toss with grated carrots and fennel bulb.

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 10 comments

This recipe was originally slated for my cookbook, but I seem to have too many recipes already slated for the Vegetable chapter, so I’m puttin’ it here and sharing with you on the blog.

Learning a good stir fry technique for home cooking is important – it will save you from throwing out the odds and ends of vegetables in the refrigerator, and give you countless recipe ideas to whip up at the last minute.

A stir fry usually only takes 10 minutes to cook and can be as flexible as you want. Here’s my technique for home cooks.

How to Stir Fry Green Bean and Shiitake Mushrooms

You can use either a saute pan (a fry pan with high straight sides + lid) or a wok. The first step is to cook the green beans because they will have a difficult time cooking in the stir fry without overcooking the rest of the ingredients. Other vegetables that require pre-cooking include: broccoli, cauliflower and any thick, hard vegetable.

I like to steam them instead of boiling/blanching them because it takes less time to bring a small amount of water to boil for steaming.

Fill the wok with about 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Add in the green beans and cover.

Once the green beans are cooked to crisp-tender (just taste one, if it doesn’t taste raw anymore, it should be fine), remove the beans and drain. Wipe the wok clean with a towel and return to the stove.

You need to make sure that the wok has no water – not even a drop – as you’ll be adding in cooking oil. Hot wok + water + oil = splatter and burns.

When the wok is hot again, swirl in the cooking oil and add in the mushrooms and onions. Stir fry for a couple of minutes. Then add in the garlic, ginger and green beans.

Why do we not add in the ginger and garlic in an earlier step with onions? Because they’ll burn. Burnt ginger and garlic is bitter. So we add it AFTER the mushrooms and the onions have cooked.

The next step is to add in the oyster sauce and water and stir fry until the sauce is just beginning to bubble. That’s it!

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 29 comments

A couple of weeks ago, we had a massive Temaki sushi party with friends. If you’ve never been to one, I highly suggest making friends with the fine folks at I Love Blue Sea  or head over to Casson Trenor’s site, Sustainable Sushi and host a sushi party of your own.

Since I’m a type of person who always over-cooks for dinner parties (oh, not overcook as in sawdust meat, but over-cooks as in I prepare enough food to feed triple the amount of guests I’m expecting), there was plenty of seafood leftover for the weekend to make Seafood Miso Noodle Soup.

Like nearly all of my recipes, this meal is fast ‘n flexible, especially when you use rice noodles, which take a quick soak and 30 second boil. Dried rice noodles are soaked in cool or warm water for a few minutes to soften and rehydrate a bit. Then a swirl in your boiling broth and it’s done.

Japanese miso flavors the broth – you can use regular miso paste (any kind, though I recommend Shiro Miso, which is white miso, the most mild of all) or check out my client, Miso & Easy, which is prepared miso paste already mixed with dashi and conveniently packaged in a squeeze bottle. Just add water.

The rest of the ingredients are really up to you – assorted seafood, any vegetable and any fresh mushrooms that you like. I’ve used Japanese mushrooms (Brown Beech Mushroom), but regular sliced white mushrooms will work just as well.

Ingredients for Seafood Miso Noodle Soup

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 19 comments

I was sent a lovely note from blog reader, Carol, requesting a recipe for scallops with a lovely fruity sauce. It’s a dish from Blackfin Bistro, a restaurant in Key West, but sadly they no longer have it on the menu. Don’t you hate that? Fall in love with a restaurant’s dish and then it disappears from the menu!

Fortunately for me, I love a challenge of replicating a restaurant dish….and so do many others! Check out my friend Stephanie’s website, CopyKat Recipes. I’ve recreated Carabba’s herby-garlicky bread dip, Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad and one day I’ll figure out how to make Outback’s Bloomin’ Onion without setting off the smoke alarm.

So, Carol, here’s a recipe for you – hopefully it will come close to what you once ordered. It’s got all elements of a good dish – salty, savory, sweet, tangy and buttery. Big thanks to Adam and Joanne for this recipe!

Scallops with Apricot Sauce

Here’s what you’re going to need:

Start by patting each scallop dry with a paper towel so they sear nicely when cooked.

Heat a nonstick pan over medium-high heat, add some olive oil then add the scallops. Once the scallops are in the pan, try not to move them until they have a nice brown crust, this will take about 2 minutes. Next, flip and cook until the second side is also seared.

While the scallops cook, make the sauce. Add grated or finely minced ginger to some olive oil over medium heat. Cook until the ginger just begins to brown.

Then, add the apricot jam.

Add a some soy sauce….

and if the sauce is really thick, a tablespoon or so of water to thin it out a bit.

Serve the scallops on top of rice or alongside vegetables with a drizzle of apricot sauce.

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments

As my many house guests can attest to, I am not a breakfast eater (unless I’m hung over, then a 1/2 pound of bacon will be devoured quickly). When Diane and Todd were over, the first thing my boys did right after waking up in the morning was run over to the cottage to wake them up and drag them to the house to make their famous breakfast.

They made homemade pancakes, waffles, french toast and cinnamon sugar knots. Oh, and we went through 10 pounds of bacon too (I’m not joking). You should see my boys’ faces when they woke up on Sunday and realized Uncle Todd and Auntie Diane were gone….(sigh) back to cold cereal and boring eggs.

But the ONE thing I will eat in the morning is 10-minute miso soup. Okay, sometimes I like Ochazuke for breakfast too (but that’s for another post). My body craves savory Japanese flavors in the morning and miso soup, fortified with egg, mushrooms, tofu and whatever leafy greens I have will hit the spot.

I’m developing recipes for Miso & Easy, which is a prepared miso paste that’s all ready to go – add hot water and you’ve got instant miso soup. It’s a brand new product.

If you’re using regular miso paste, same recipe, just use vegetable broth or dashi broth in place of water.

What is dashi?

Dashi is Japanese soup base that’s made from bonito fish. Instead of using chicken, vegetable or beef broth (in soups and in cooking dishes), Japanese recipes will call for dashi broth instead. You can make it from scratch, with a piece of kombu (dried seaweed) and dried bonito flakes; or use instant dashi powder (which is what I use)

But if you don’t have dashi, just use vegetable broth instead.

As for the other ingredients, it’s simple. And flexible. Whatever fresh mushrooms you have (below I have Japanese mushrooms), whatever leafy greens you want (spinach, bok choy, napa cabbage) and whatever firmness of tofu you want.

©Steamy Kitchen Recipes, 2012. | Permalink | 33 comments