Penne Pasta Crab Louie Salad

It's salad season and I'm excited to share this new one with you. It's quick, inexpensive and looks oh-so pretty on a plate. I was going to make it with shrimp but came across some imitation crab on sale at my market. All I can say is, what a difference in price, and it's worth a try! I used to be a snob about the Pollack/King Crab mixture and wouldn't give it a second thought. Well, times have changed. I'm a big girl now and have to admit, it's really quite delicious. The brand I bought is Trans Ocean Crab Classic and I'll buy it again.

Penne Pasta Crab Louie Salad
Serves 4-6

The Salad
6 oz uncooked penne pasta
8 oz imitation crab
1/2 cup finely diced celery
4 scallions (white and light green parts) chopped

The Sauce
1-1/2 T cocktail sauce
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I used lite)
1/4 cup sour cream (optional)
1/2-1 lemon
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 T capers
salt and pepper to taste

The Garnish (use one or all)
hard boiled eggs
baby spinach
grape tomatoes halved
Olde Thompson Steak & Burger Seasoning

Prepare penne according to package directions. While pasta is cooking, prep your crab, celery and scallions. When penne is cooked, drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. To make the Louie sauce, combine all ingredients, mix well and taste to see if you need additional salt, pepper or lemon. I like my Louie sauce on the lemony side. Mix your sauce with the cooled pasta, crab, celery and scallions and refrigerate until chilled.

Right before serving, I give the salad an additional squeeze of lemon to loosen it up a bit and regenerate it. Plate this baby up and enjoy, I sure did!

Saucy

I made a saucy little dinner last night with the help of Lidia Bastianich, one of my favorite celebrity chefs and cookbook authors. Her cooking is always simple and ever-so flavorful, and reminds me of the way my mom used to effortlessly cook. Haddock's been on sale this week, so that was my fish of choice, but any white fish will do. I changed Lidia's recipe slightly and added a yummy roasted red pepper and caper tarter sauce (aioli), which turned out to be a great complement to the garlic and lemon flavored fish. This recipe serves four and it's definately company fare. I give it five stars.

Savory Bread Crumb Topped Baked Haddock with
Roasted Red Pepper, Lemon and Caper Aioli
Adapted from Lidia Bastianich

Fish
1-1/2 pounds haddock
1 tsp kosher salt
4 T extra virgin olive oil
Juice of one lemon
1/4 cup white wine (I used chardonnay)
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed with a big chef's knife
1/2 cup seasoned (store-bought) bread crumbs
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
Fresh lemon slices for garnish

Sauce
1/2 roasted red pepper (I use Pastene jarred) chopped fine
3 tsp capers chopped fine
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp jarred white horseradish
1/2 cup light mayonnaise

To make the fish: Pre heat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly salt the fish on both sides, using about 1/2 tsp in all. Pour 2 T of the olive oil, the lemon juice, white wine and an additional 1/4 tsp salt into a baking dish (I used a glass Pyrex) and whisk together well. Drop in the crushed garlic cloves and stir with the dressing. Lay the fish filets in the dish, turn and swish them around in the olive oil mixture so both sides are thoroughly moistened. Arrange them skin side down, in one layer. I tucked the crushed garlic under the fish so it wouldn't burn while cookin in the high temp oven.

Toss bread crumbs in a bowl with the lemon zest, cayenne pepper and remaining salt. Drizzle with 2 T olive oil and toss crumb mixture well until evenly moistened. Spoon the seasoned bread crumbs on top of the filets in an even layer. Bake uncovered until the crumbs are crisp and golden and the fish is cooked through, about 20-25 minutes.

To make the sauce: Combine all ingredients in a medium size bowl and whisk until combined.


If time permits, make the sauce ahead of time. Refrigerate and let the flavors get to know one another and thicken a bit. I think you'll be very happy. I know that while writing this post, I nibbled on some microwaved leftovers and aioli, and I'm very pleased with last night's dinner.

A Nice Comfort

I was planning on sharing my newest discovery from the South Beach book but halfway through the post I switched gears and all of a sudden I'm back with another soup recipe. I'm on a comfort food kick, plain and simple. It's January and it's really winter now. I'm not a big fan of the cold, the snow and the general inconvenience of the season, so I'm looking for comfort wherever I can find it. And for me that would be delightful aromas wafting through my kitchen.

Comfort Food: According to Wikipedia, comfort foods are familiar, simple foods that are usually home-cooked or eaten at informal restaurants. They are foods that are often emotionally significant to a person or group of people and are sometimes related to pleasant memories of childhood.

When I was growing up, my favorite meals were the creamy, cheesy, noodly casseroles that my mom would throw together at the last minute when my dad was working late and it would just be my sister and me at the dinner table. I'm still a big fan of all tuna noodle concoctions and anything Campbell's Soup enhanced. But there are other dishes that are a little less calorie laden that give me the warmth and security I need in these cold winter months. One of these would be my dad's clam chowder. I'm originally from New York so the clam chowder I grew up on had nothing creamy on the ingredient list. We ate Manhattan clam chowder- tomato based and definately figure-friendly. My dad (who hardly ever cooked) would make this maybe once or twice a year on a lazy Sunday afternoon. He sent me this recipe in January, 1991 when I must have been craving some comfort and warmth.

He called it "Ye Olde Daddy's Clam Chowder" and looking at the stained, yellowed paper it was typed on, you know it's a recipe that's been enjoyed year after year by me. It not only conjurs up memories of my teen years, but of summers as a kid when we used to visit with relatives on the Coney Island Boardwalk, sip red chowder from a paper cup, and I'd fall asleep in the back seat of my parent's Studebaker on the ride home to Long Island.

YE OLDE DADDY'S CLAM CHOWDER
This is a typical recipe that I would get from any member of my family- by that I mean the vague measurements, which in the long run (I think) helped me become a better cook

Ingredients:
3 large onions
4-5 T oil
2 28 oz cans tomatoes (stewed in puree or plain tomatoes)
1 16 oz can kernal corn
3 cans chopped clams
4 medium size carrots, peeled and diced
3 large potatoes, peeled and diced
1 package (8 or 9 oz) frozen cut string beans (remove from freezer when you start to cook)
5 slices of bacon cooked (do not cook to crisp, cook to semi soft and cut into 1 inch slices)
SEASONINGS- thyme, oregano, sugar, salt and pepper

Saute onions in oil until soft. Add salt, pepper, thyme and oregano. Add tomatoes and cook for a few minutes over medium heat. Add small amounts of water if mixture is too thick.
Add potatoes and carrots and cook on low-to-medium heat for 20-30 minutes. Taste potatoes and carrots. They should be firm to the bite at this point.
Add drained corn, frozen string beans and bacon. Continue to simmer until carrots and potatoes are done. Add sugar until the tartness of the tomatoes is suitable to your taste.
Add clams and and their juice; the entire mixture should be heated and the flavor should be adjusted with spices, sugar etc.

Re-Mix: I don't do too much to change this recipe except add Old Bay Seasoning in place of the salt. I like the flavor it gives the soup, and there's plenty of salt in the Old Bay mixture itself. Sometimes I'll buy a bottle of clam broth and add that instead of water, but now that I'm kinda old and watch my salt intake, I leave it out more often than not. Oh- and I have to warn you, this recipe makes enough to feed an army, so I cut down on these ingredients: onions (I use 2), oil (I use 1 or 2 T) and only 1 can of the tomatoes and 2 cans of clams.

If you're not a clam lover, but like fish, this recipe makes a great fish chowder. Simply omit the clams, add the whole bottle of clam broth mentioned above, and add a pound or two of cod or haddock 15 to 20 minutes before you're ready to eat.

Thanks dad.