Seafood with Pesto from Maria Liberati and a Festa Italiana #Giveaway

Milwaukee is known as the City of Festivals for good reason.  In addition to the world's largest music festival, Summerfest, Milwaukee is also privileged to be the host of some of the world's best ethnic festivals.

One of the tastiest just happens to be Festa Italiana, coming up on July 19-21 (stay tuned below for a chance to win tickets).  Among its other claims to fame, Festa happens to be largest Italian event of its kind in America today.

Last year, I wrote a guide to "eating your way through Festa."  This year, I had the opportunity to interview Maria Liberati, former international supermodel, blogger, cookbook author and food and travel writer for The Mortan Report. 

Interestingly, during the height of her modeling career while jet-setting around Europe, Liberati rediscovered the simplicity of Italian food while spending time at her family's vineyard in the mountains of central Italy. She began to experience the real tastes of food that she knew from her childhood. And she created an entirely new career based around her love of Italian food.

Today, Libearti is considered one of the foremost experts in Italian cuisine, culinary travel, wine and culture and has been referred to on occasion as the "Italian Martha Stewart."

I was curious to find out more about Liberati's cooking philosophy, as well as her impressions of Milwaukee and Festa Italiana. Here's what she told me.

She was also kind enough to leave me with a deliciously simple recipe for a great summer appetizer. In turn, I'm sharing that with you.

In addition, if you happen to be around for Festa Italiana in Milwaukee this year, be sure you read to the bottom of the post and enter to win a pair of tickets to the festival (a $26 value).

Sapore di Mare al Pesto (Seafood with Pesto) 

By Maria Liberati

¼ cup diced shallots

3 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled and diced

1 tbsps extra virgin olive oil

1 lb of sea scallops, diced

½ lb small shrimp diced

dash of pepperoncino (hot red pepper)

Pesto Sauce

1 cup fresh basil leaves, remove stems

1 clove garlic crushed

½ cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese freshly grated

1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup pignoli nuts

Wash basil leaves thoroughly and pat dry.

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and blend for 5-10 seconds or until smooth. Add more parmigiano-reggiano cheese to taste. Pesto sauce can be stored in the refrigerator

In a large skillet, sauté the shallots and tomatoes in oil for 3 minutes. Add diced scallops and shrimp and mix thoroughly; sauté for 3 minutes. Pour the pesto sauce over the seafood, toss, and sauté for another 5 minutes. Serve warm or cold over radicchio leaves.

___________________________________________

In celebration of Festa Italiana, we'll be giving away pairs of tickets to two (2) lucky readers!

For your chance to win, head over to OnMilwaukee.com and check out my interview with Maria Liberati. Then come back and leave us a message telling us what most surprised you about the interview.

Giveaway ends on Sunday, July 14, 2013 at 11:59 p.m.  Tickets will be mailed to the winners on July 15th, or as soon as we have accurate mailing information for the chosen winners.

Winners will be chosen at random and notified by email, so please leave your email addy with your comment if it's not included with your Blogger profile. Entries from the U.S. only, please (and please only enter if you know that you can make it to Festa Italiana in Milwaukee on July 19-21).

Full Disclosure: This giveaway is sponsored by Festa Italiana, who provided us with the product for our giveaway. However, all opinions expressed in this post are our own.

©BURP!

Pacific Salmon with Wild Ramp Pesto

Spring has finally sprung here in southeastern Wisconsin. We've had gorgeously mild weather for the past few days, and it's given me a craving for deliciously fresh spring fare.

Seasonal local produce is still somewhat scarce. But, there are a few delicacies available to satiate my cravings. One is the delicious spring ramp. 

Resembling scallions, ramps begin at their base as lovely white bulbs whose gorgeous reddish-purple stalks rise upward into a plume of elegantly silky green leaves. With a mild flavor poised deliciously between that of leeks and garlic, they make a delicious addition to pasta dishes and pestos. And they marry particularly well with farm fresh spring eggs.

Many supermarkets carry ramps when in season. However, they can also be foraged*. We were lucky to have a friend who shared his favorite foraging spot with us this year, so we were able to head out today to pick up a few handfuls of this favorite spring delicacy.

The question, once we got them home was, of course, what to make?

Why, a simple pan seared salmon recipe, of course.
This uber-easy recipe makes full use of the flavor of the mild tops of spring ramps, in full complement to the rich, silky flavor of seasonal salmon.

Best thing is, there's very little effort involved. You just need a few simple ingredients, a food processor, and a nice heavy cast iron skillet for cooking your salmon.

If you've never seared salmon in cast iron before, you're in for a treat. It's quick, easy, and delicious.

Heat your cast iron skillet over medium heat until it's so hot it's almost beginning to smoke (5-7 minutes). Add a tablespoon or two of butter, and allow it to melt, covering the entire cooking surface. Place salmon filets in the pan and allow to cook for 2-3 minutes or until the filet begins to brown. Flip the filet, cover the skillet, and continue cooking for an additional 2-3 minutes -- or until the dark/under cooked middle portion of the filet comprises slightly less than a quarter of the total filet thickness.

Top salmon with ramp pesto before serving.

Spring Ramp Pesto

For those of you who love ramps as much as we do, stay tuned. We'll have a couple more recipe ideas for you coming up!

NOTE: *If you are lucky enough to know of a place to forage for wild ramps,take care to keep sustainability in mind. Harvest only from large, healthy beds and take, at most, a fraction of what is there (no more than 5-10% of a bed). Concern about over-harvesting has everything to do with the fact that wild ramps do not seed themselves; once you pick a ramp it does not grow back. And over-harvesting can easily decimate a ramp population. 

©BURP!

Easter Dishes: Spring Risotto with Asparagus "Pesto"

  I've got a thing for risotto. And it's not just because it's so creamy and delicious.

That's part of it, of course.  But, I also appreciate its versatility.  Throw anything in with a bit of stock and some arborio rice, and you can call it dinner.

Some people complain that risotto takes such a long time to make.  And they whine about how it requires so much stirring.  But, that's another thing I love about it.  I love watching the rice toast in the oil.  I love how you can see it absorbing the liquid -- first the wine, and then the stock. I love how the grains turn from firm to creamy, almost before your very eyes. And the stirring -- well, that's sort of like meditation.

I particularly love risotto in the springtime when I have a wealth of new vegetables and fresh herbs to choose from.  Like asparagus.


The asparagus pesto in this dish is made in the same manner as a more traditional basil pesto. Blanched asparagus is pureed with garlic, Romano cheese, toasted pine nuts and olive oil, along with a bit of spinach to intensify its bright green color.  Lemon juice is added to pull the flavors together and add a pleasant brightness to the finished pesto.

This delicious spring risotto makes an excellent vegetarian main course or side dish which can be served with a variety of roasted or grilled meats. Leftover asparagus pesto is delicious tossed with cooked pasta, spread on grilled cheese sandwiches, or stirred into potato soup.

Even the leftover risotto is delicious.  Dish it up into a bright colored bowl and eat it right out on the patio, alongside the daffodils, while sipping a glass of delicious Savignon Blanc.

Spring Risotto with Asparagus "Pesto"

©BURP! Where Food Happens

Orecchiette with Mizuna Pesto

Do you ever notice that your cooking habits seem to run in streaks?  I know that ours do.  For the past couple of weeks, we seem to have gotten hooked on pasta dishes.  It probably has something to do with all the fresh greens we were finding at the market, since we've been on a bit of a pesto kick.

Purists we are not, since we seem prone to making pesto out of just about any available greens we have on hand.  We're constantly tossing in variables -- jalapeno peppers, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes -- just to keep things interesting.  


This week, the object of our pesto-love was a Japanese green called mizuna.  Sometimes called Japanese mustard, mizuna has a mild, yet tangy flavor, and an almost other-worldly bright green color when chopped.  I normally like to put it in salads or use it as a sandwich topping. But, when Bryan from the Jen Ehr Family Farm booth at the market mentioned that he'd been making his mizuna into pesto, we decided to try our hand at it too.

Into the food processor went our bunch of mizuna (ends trimmed), 5 stalks of green garlic, and a liberal dose of olive oil.  We set the pasta on to boil while we were making the pesto, then tossed the pasta with the pesto and a bit of reserved pasta cooking water.

The best part of all?  Dinner was on the table in less than 20 minutes.

I chose a bag of those lovely, cup-shaped, whole wheat orecchiette pasta for this dish, envisioning that the shape of the pasta would help to scoop up all of that lovely pesto sauce -- and I was right about that. We also used whole toasted pine nuts (instead of grinding them into the pesto) to give the pasta some additional texture.

The pesto was absolutely delicious, if a bit more mild than I expected. And, as you can see, it was a beautifully intense green color (pretty is always a bonus with food). We had a bit of extra sauce leftover, and we used that as the base for a chicken pizza a few days later.

So, next time you get tired of eating mizuna in your salad, think about  making it into a quick summer pesto.

Classic Pesto (with variations)


©BURP! Where Food Happens
Want more? Read Lo's latest ruminations at DEVOUR Milwaukee, her Milwaukee Magazine blog.

Stinging Nettle & Garlic Puree: Putting Up a Bit of Spring

I'm not really a fan of the summer months. I know that's probably perplexing, and maybe a bit difficult to believe. But, the truth is, I'm not great with heat and humidity,  I'm a far bigger fan of the spring and autumn, when cooler winds blow and the sun flits her lashes at us a bit more demurely.

But I reallyreallyreally love the process of stuffing our coffers with all the delicious flavors that summertime offers. And I get a serious kick out of bringing a creative spin to all the delicious foodstuffs we decide to "put up."

Last year we started our preserving adventures somewhere in mid to late summer.  We froze Door County peaches and we made both pickled and candied jalapeno peppers. We perfected our tomatillo salsa and stockpiled both roasted red and poblano peppers. We managed to put up enough fruit to get us through the winter without buying very much at all, except a few errant bunches of bananas for our morning smoothies. And we enjoyed fresh-frozen pesto right up through the first weeks in June. But, this year, I wanted to begin the adventures sooner.  After all, there are a great many early summer delights that can be harvested and preserved.

I've been inspired for years by the foraging prowess of Langdon Cook, Pacific Northwest resident, foraging expert, published author and blogger at Fat of the Land.   Although Langdon presents a phenomenally wide repertoire of both adventures and recipes, I've been most inspired by some of this writings on stinging nettles.  His love for these humble weeds made me anxious to find some of my very own.  And I can report success this summer, thanks to Dave Swanson of Braise and the amazing farmers over at Keewaydin Organic Farm in Viola, Wisconsin.

This year I was the proud recipient of just over 2 pounds of fresh stinging nettles.I was almost giddy as I slipped on a pair of latex gloves in preparation to wash and trim my nettles.

 I had no idea what to expect from these ultra-green, nutrient packed weeds.  I knew that a handful of nettles provides more than 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, as well as a plethora of minerals  I also knew that they made a power-packed, if somewhat unappealing, tea.  But I wondered after their flavor. Was it earthy?  Woodsy?  Interminably chlorophyllic?

Since nettles must be blanched to rid them of their infamous stinging barbs, we brought a large pot of cold water to a rolling boil and began the process.

We blanced and chopped and pulsed and blended.  And we ended up with a delicious and pesto-like nettle and green garlic paste, which I could easily freeze in manageable portions for use all winter long.

I foresee mixing the nettle paste with pasta and whole toasted pine nuts for a delicious weeknight meal, spreading the past on pizza, and adding dollops of it to soups, risottos, and scrambled eggs on lazy February weekends.

It was a simple thing. But, it made me oh-so-very happy.
I can't wait to see what we'll put up next.


©BURP! Where Food Happens
Want more? Read Lo's latest ruminations at DEVOUR Milwaukee, her Milwaukee Magazine blog.

Spring Eats: Asparagus Pizza with Summers Past Pesto

If I haven't made it clear that we LOVE our freezer, I want to make that clear now.  I don't know where we'd be without all the goodies we store up in our over-sized chest freezer.

I'm fairly certain some people thought we were crazy when we went out and bought a chest freezer -- primarily because this freezer wasn't the smallest one on the market. Nope -- we have 20+ cubic feet of gorgeous freezer space, complete with storage bins that we can lift in and out. We went with a chest freezer since they were more efficient than an upright, but we'd heard horror stories from others who claim to have "lost" things in the bottom of their chest freezers.  So, right off the bat, we developed an organization system.  We bought a few plastic storage bins that fit into the freezer and help us to organize the foods by "type" -- tomatoes/sauces in one, meats in another, veggies in yet another. We also created a freezer list, which lives upstairs.  It's been hit-or-miss lately, but the idea is that we keep the list up to date -- adding new items when we put them into the freezer, and crossing items off when we use them up.  Works pretty well, and it keeps us eating locally -- even in the dark days of winter.

One of the items that makes me glow when I think about our freezer is... pesto.  OH, yeah.  When summer hits, you'll find us growing plenty of basil in our garden.  Heck, we practically eat the stuff out of hand.  But, we also love to use the leaves to make plenty of pesto -- for storage.  Basil, garlic, toasted pine-nuts, and a bit of oil -- and we're set (I purposely leave the cheese out when I'm freezing pesto).  I put pre-measured quarter-cup portions into small storage containers or baggies -- and pack them all into the freezer for that dreary day in January when we could all use a bit of a pick-me-up.

I just used up the last of our stash of last summer's pesto a few nights ago. It was getting late and we both were starving.  I had a bunch of fresh spring asparagus on hand... and a freshly fed bowl of sourdough starter.  So, we decided to whip up a super simple pizza.

You don't even need a recipe for this one if you've got some pesto and a bit of dough on hand.  First, preheat your oven to 500 degrees (or higher, if your oven is capable). Slice your asparagus in half lengthwise -- and then into 1 inch pieces.  Then roll out your pizza dough onto a piece of parchment paper.  Spread it with a thin layer of pesto, and then top it with a handful of mozzarella cheese. 

Add the asparagus.  And then another layer of cheese.  Then sprinkle with a couple tablespoons of basil and oregano (fresh or dried).  Bake for 20 minutes -- or until the pizza dough is crisp and the cheese speckled with brown.

Voila! Simple weeknight pizza that tastes a suspiciously like last summer.

Sourdough pizza crust


©BURP! Where Food Happens