Proud Italian Cook

Scenes From Chicago Gourmet 2014

September 30, 2014 by Marie 5 Comments

This past Saturday I attended Chicago Gourmet at beautiful Millennium Park, Chicago’s celebration of food and wine.

Chicago Gourmet is a gorge feast of food, wine and spirits, celebrity chefs, live demos, seminars and much much more.

Lucky for us the weather was absolutely gorgeous that day!

Opening ceremonies started out with a champagne toast thanking the presenters, sponsors, chefs and those that worked tirelessly on this event.

And look who showed up to give the toast, our own Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanual! ( Morimoto and Carla Hall too)

He was proud to acknowledge how Chicago has excelled in the culinary world with national and international restaurants and chefs, and how honored he is that Chicago will be hosting the 2015 James Beard Awards. Cheers to that!

I always enjoy the chef demos because the venue is so intimate,it’s like you’re hanging out in their kitchen. In this demo Chicago’s very own, Chef Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill/ Topolobampo/ XOCO made a quick and easy, dynamic green mole sauce and served it over roasted vegetables.

Speaking of vegetables, they’re apparantly trending more and more in restaurants with an emphasis on healthier eating.

Along with Chef Bayless was Chef Carlos Gaytan of Mexique, he created a beautiful seafood tamale.

Chef Stephanie Izard, Girl & The Goat/ Little Goat, is so laid back in the way she cooks and so at ease in the kitchen, she’s known for her different and unique flavor combinations and she doesn’t really measure as she cooks, she likes to wing it and develop flavors as shes goes, my kind of girl. No wonder she became a Top Chef winner!

This dish, a vegetable paella was demoed by Chef Jamie Bissonnette/Coppa, he emphasized using every part of the vegetable, sort of like the nose to tail concept but only for veggies, nothing was wasted and the paella looked colorful and stunning when finished.

James Beard Award winners Chef Justin Aprahamian/Sanford Restaurant ( Best Chef Midwest) and Chef Jimmy Bannos Jr./The Purple Pig, (Rising Star Chef) had a lively demo together featuring caraway crusted sea scallops and roasted garlic and herb salt encrusted pork tenderloin.

Jeff Mauro AKA “Sandwich King” so down to earth, stayed and talked with everyone, still lives in Elmwood Park and actually films his show from there, fame hasn’t changed him one bit and of course he made a delicious foccaccia sandwich.

There were tastings after tastings of over 190 of Chicago’s finest restaurants and chefs, you couldn’t possibly try everything, you’d explode!

Chunky crab dip, jumbo shrimp cocktail, chicken and waffles and an oyster shooter was featured at this Chef tasting pavilion.
Lobster rolls, bacon wrapped scallops, flank steak with chimichurri, cerviche, bbq, wild boar meatballs, burgers, dim sum, house made salumi.

I could go on and on and on…

Elite wines, craft beers and other artisan spirits were featured all over, you definitely had to pace yourself, if you know what I mean!

Desserts? They had it covered. Chocolates, candies, cookies, cakes, cupcakes, panna cotta, ice cream and fried dough, just to name a few.

How about a little donut with cheese popcorn pastry cream, a little caramel frosting and a cheese-caramel popcorn for garnish, sound weird to you? Trust me, they were to die for!

Look at these beauties, except all I could manage was a tiny bit of each. My favorite was that gorgeous looking, rectangled pistacchio cake with cherries and hazelnuts set in a butter cookie crust, I’m still dreaming about it!

Chicago Gourmet keeps getting better and better each year!

Until next time, Ciao

5 Comments Filed Under: Chicago Tagged: Chicago culinary scene, Chicago Gourmet 2014

Butternut Squash Noodles with Sausage, Mushrooms and Kale

September 23, 2014 by Marie 11 Comments

Here I go again with my Spiralizer, but this time it’s all about butternut squash “noodles”! As soon as fall arrives you’ll always see a butternut squash or two sitting on my counter, it’s my favorite squash, it’s so versatile and easy to incorporate into so many meals.

If you did a search on my blog you would see how often I cook with it. I’ve made ravioli, polenta, lasagna, tarts, salads, pizza, I could go on and on and one of my most popular recipes, butternut squash gnocchi, I always get requests for it.

I like using a Spiralizer because you really get spaghetti like strands, in the past I’ve used a julienne peeler and while that works pretty good you don’t get that curly continuous look of real spaghetti. A good tip to remember when making spiralized butternut squash is to pick a squash on the smaller size that has a long neck on it, because basically you’ll just be using the neck of the squash, just dice and roast up the bulb part for something else.

See how long and curly the strands are? It’s a wonderful thing!

You’ll have to slightly roast the squash beforehand by placing the “noodles” on a baking sheet, tossed and drizzled with olive oil, a little salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees for a mere five minutes or so. I personally like to check them as they’re roasting by taking my tongs and tossing them just to make sure they don’t over cook, you want them slightly limp with no signs of burning, they’re delicate. You’re not looking for mushy and overdone, you want al’dente like pasta.

I added crumbles of spicy Italian sausage that I pre-cooked, roasted mushrooms and kale that was sauteed in olive oil, minced garlic and red pepper flakes.

Gently toss everything together and add a ton of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano and another pass of your best olive oil.

This is heaven in on a plate!

11 Comments Filed Under: Fall, Greens, Vegetables Tagged: butternut squash, butternut squash noodles, gluten free, kale, Spiralizer, squash noodles

Gnocchi with Swiss Chard and Ricotta

September 16, 2014 by Marie 9 Comments

As soon as there’s a chill in the air I have the urge to make gnocchi, I don’t know why, but I just do. So on a cool, dark, dreary Sunday I whipped up a batch.

I’m partial to ricotta based gnocchi instead of the potato ones, they’re light as a cloud and melt in your mouth plus you can get a batch together in no time at all.

This time I wanted to add some Swiss chard to mine, I still have a ton growing in my garden and since I’ve done kale gnocchi before I’d thought I’d try it with chard.

You don’t need a bunch of chard because a little goes along way. Rinse it really good then blanch it for a few minutes, the key thing to remember is make sure you squeeze out all that excess water because you don’t want super wet greens added into your dough. I use my potato ricer for squeezing, it works wonders!

Making gnocchi isn’t difficult, it’s all about how that dough feels, you don’t want a sticky dough, it can be slightly tacky but that’s about it. Make sure to drain your ricotta, some deli ricotta can be very wet so you’ll want to make sure to drain it really good, otherwise you’ll be adding too much flour and your gnocchi will tastes like lead!

Add your flour a little at a time, you might need more or less than the recipe calls for, you’ll know by the feel of it.

A simple marinara always goes well with gnocchi but this time I added a little roasted red pepper puree into mine, ( roast a couple of red peppers then puree them with a little olive oil in a food processor) and we loved it even more, it was a match made in pillowy cloud heaven!

I also tossed some into a warm garlic butter sauce using just two tablespoons of butter, one small chopped garlic clove and the juice and zest of one lemon, I added diced and roasted zucchini along with freshly grated parmesan cheese, delish!