August is...

An email advertisement from eatingwell.com has recently alerted me that August is apparently National Olive Month. As it happens I have half a jar of Kalamata olives sitting in my fridge, awaiting their grand purpose (I used the other half in a delicious hearty Mediterranean vegetable pasta sauce I made a while back, I am hoping to wait for more hearty-pasta type weather before posting that one; who wants "hearty" when the humidity is at 75%?) and so I decided- why not observe national olive month like any patriotic American should?

As I thought about national olive month, I started to wonder what other grand and important holidays take place in the month of August that most of us have never heard of. A quick search through the interwebs informs me that August is also National Water Quality Month, Panini Month, Catfish Month, and Immunization Awareness Month. So in short, be sure this month to make the following recipe for an olive panino (yes, apparently the singular for panini, please correct me if I'm wrong), make sure to filter your water, perhaps go catfishing, and of course get up to date with your vaccines!

Some individual holidays that take place in August which may be worth noting include "Kiss and make up day" (August 25) "wiggle your toes day" (August 6th), "bad poetry day" (August 18) and "sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor's porch day" (August 8th). I plan to observe as many of these important holidays as I can, though I may need to bend some rules on "sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor's porch" day, as I live in an apartment building and my neighbors mostly do not have porches. That being said, to all my friends in the neighborhood: don't be surprised when a zucchini appears unexpectedly on August 8th on your porch/stoop/hallway/desk etc... Also, might as well go ahead and start bracing yourself for the bad poetry bound to be created (and perhaps read in public?) by yours truly on the 18th.



Summer Vegetable Panini with Homemade Olive Tapenade
Ingredients:  (for one sandwich)
2 slices of your favorite hearty sandwich bread (I used Trader Joe's San Francisco multigrain sourdough)
1 to 2 tablespoons olive tapanade (recipe to follow)
2 thick slices of eggplant
2 flat slices of red or yellow bell pepper (one quarter of pepper each, seeds, ribs, and core removed)
1 ounce fresh soft goat cheese
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

note: There are tons of fun variations you could do here. The possibilities are endless, really. I will probably be eating panini with eggplant and olive tapenade all week, i have enough of the basic ingredients. Variations I plan to try include eggplant, olive, argula and grape tomatoes, and olive, eggplant and mozzarella. Have an idea for a combination that sounds good with these flavors? Tell me in the comments!

Homemade Olive Tapenade:
2.5 ounces pitted black kalamata olives
1 teaspoon capers
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

To make the tapenade: combine all ingredients in a food processor (or in a small sturdy bowl if you plan to use a hand blender) pulse until ingredients form a thick paste.

To make the panini:
Grill or roast the eggplant and bell pepper slices. Use the olive oil to lightly coat the vegetables before cooking. I did not have access to a grill, so I cooked them over high heat on a grill pan.

Spread the two slices of bread with first a thin layer of goat cheese and then a thin layer of tapenade. layer the eggplant and red pepper onto one slice and top to construct the sandwich. cook on the grill, in a panini press, or like I did on the grill pan weighted with an iron grill press for a few minutes until the bread is browned.

Happy August Everyone! How will you celebrate?

Penne with Goat Cheese, Asparagus and Bacon

There is a pasta dish that has recently become a  favorite in my family that features only 4 ingredients: olive oil, garlic, goat cheese and asparagus. The sharpness of the goat cheese and crisp sauteed garlic add enough interest that no other ingredients are needed.  Despite that fact, I can't help but add something. And lately, the thing I want to add (to almost any dish, I was planning to add some to the cornbread I was going to serve with my Sweet potato and black bean chili were it not for the fact that 2 of the guests who I made that meal for are vegetarian...) is BACON. Yes, crispy, salty, fatty bacon. What could be better? And what was I thinking for all those years that I refused to eat bacon?



This dish could easily be made with left over already cooked asparagus and/or bacon, you can add these ingredients in to heat and get a little crisper towards the end of the cook time for the shallots and garlic.

Penne with Goat cheese, Asparagus and Bacon
Serves 4 as a side, or 2 as a meal
Prep time: approx. 15min including pasta cook time
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat Penne pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil divided
2 shallots
3 tablespoons soft goat cheese
3 cloves of garlic
10 stalks of asparagus, roasted
6 pieces uncured bacon
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

This dish requires some multitasking- all of the ingredients need about 10-15 minutes to cook, so it is important to start them all near the same time. The asparagus can be roasted in the oven at 350 with a little olive oil, while the water for the pasta should be turned on at the same time the asparagus is put in to roast and the shallots are chopped and sauteed.

 Chop the shallot and start to heat in a small pan with 1 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat
after the shallots appear translucent, add the garlic, chopped finely to the pan. cover and continue to cook on low heat.

In a separate pan cook the bacon over medium high heat, turning regularly until crispy.When it is done, remove from the pan on to a paper towel covered plate. then roll the paper towel around the bacon to create a bacon cocoon, and then crush with a large object or the palms of your hands. About a tablespoon of the bacon fat can be added to the pan with the shallots and garlic if you are willing- this will make the dish incredibly good- though also incredibly high in fat. If you need to justify this, remember that you are using WHOLE WHEAT PASTA, which means this is practically health food. Yes, works for me.

When the asparagus is done, chop the stalks into 1 inch pieces and mix with the shallots and garlic. add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. Add to the pasta in a large bowl and mix together the ingredients, adding the goat cheese and crumbled bacon at this time. Add salt and pepper to taste, and an extra drizzle of olive oil if it makes you happy (it makes me happy- just saying...).