photo by Andy Suarez
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When the sun begins to retreat early in the afternoon sky, the air becomes crisp, and the tree leaves turn brilliant shades of red and gold, you know: it's pumpkin season.
Why restrict yourself to that particularly spiced latte, when you can have so much more? This dairy-free pesto pairs pumpkin with anchovy for a vibrant, delicious sauce to be slathered on crusty toast with cherry tomatoes and onions.
A perfect appetizer for that time of year when the party calls for artfully placed, decorative gourds.
The latest recipe from Andy Suarez, a Chicago-based private chef with a passion for food, entertaining, and teaching. From his parents he learned about the special relationship between friends and food, and he brings that knowledge to every event and cooking class he offers. Learn more about Chef Andy Suarez at his website, and contact him for your next event.
Total Time: 15 minutes.
Servings: 4.
For the topping
1. Add anchovies, pumpkin seeds, olive oil salt, basil, and garlic to your blender or food processor, and do what you do with those kitchen tools. Blend and process until you've reached the consistency you seek.
2. Slice red onions and tomatoes, then toss them gently with sherry vinegar and olive oil.
3. Brush the slices of crusty, fresh Italian bread with canola oil and toast in a pan for 3-5 minutes or so over medium heat.
4. Top these perfectly golden slices with pesto, then the onion and tomato topping and enjoy.
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Looking for a delicious way to refresh yourself during sizzling summer afternoons? A flavorful spoonful (or 12) of chilled gazpacho is the remedy.
We have our tried and true recipe adaptation, which you see above, to recommend. Looking for something a little different? Foods & Wines from Spain offers this watermelon gazpacho that looks likely to please.
Have a particular recipe that's your favorite? Please, let us know!
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A delicious dip like no other. Don't go with the same old, same old when it comes to your next gathering of friends and family (such events are when 98% of dips are consumed, according to me, just now, making up that statistic). Serve up fire-roasted flavor so good, everyone will willingly accept a suspension of the no double dip rule.
The latest recipe from Andy Suarez, a Chicago-based private chef with a passion for food, entertaining, and teaching. From his parents he learned about the special relationship between friends and foods, and he brings that knowledge to every event and cooking class he offers. Learn more about Chef Andy Suarez at his website, and contact him for your next event.
Total Time: 15 minutes.
Servings: 2-4.
1. Blend escalivada, garbanzos, almonds and olive oil until desired consistency in a blender or food processor.
2. Slice cucumber, carrots, bell peppers and guindilla peppers to serve with dip.
3. Serve the dip in a bowl, with paprika stylishly and flavorfully sprinkled on top, and surrounded by those sliced veg and peppers. Or, like you see in the photo above. Whatever the moment calls for.
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Pan-fried zucchini and Cantabrian anchovies. Spritz of lemon. All around, nods of approval. A homemade variation inspired by Bright restaurant in London and their fried zucchini and anchovy, brought to our attention by Mr. Will Sparks, a good guy.
Total Time: 30-45 minutes.
Servings: Depends on the length of your zucchini, and the thickness of your rounds (there is no innuendo here, this is strictly about zucchini, the summer squash).
1. Place a single layer of zucchini rounds on a paper towel lined cookie sheet, sprinkle with salt, cover with more paper towels and another cookie sheet. Let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Add about 1/4 inch olive oil to a skillet over medium high heat.
3. Dip zucchini rounds in beaten egg, then in the breadcrumbs.
4. Fry breaded zucchini rounds in skillet until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Get those zucchini round just the right amount of golden brown. You'll know it when you see it.
5. Drain zucchini on paper towels.
6. Top each round with an anchovy fillet. Spritz with lemon.
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Salvador Dalí with Babou, his pet ocelot, 1965. Roger Higgins, World Telegram staff photographer. From the Library of Congress.
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“I have to thank Dalí for introducing me to your brand 😆,” wrote Louis M., making my day.
“What a pleasant surprise when I tried your sardines for the first time at the Dalí Museum in Clearwater for lunch. I had to ask the server where they came from? And it was you! Since that time I’ve ordered twice from you not only the sardines, but some of your other products. All top notch.”
Donostia Foods Sardines in Olive Oil can be found alongside (well, in the cafe, obviously) the surrealist masterpieces of Salvardor Dalí at the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Thusly, we shall be self-bestowing the title of World's Most Surreal Sardines on ours. Behold!:
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Pay a visit to the @dalimuseum and @cafe_gala for the most fantastical art and food in Florida.
And thank you, Chef @chuckbandel!
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“Habitas con Jamón” is a tapa of great renown in Spain. Below you'll find the most typical variation, with another soon to follow in a subsequent post. If you're thinking, what am I supposed to do with these baby broad beans? This is a tasty start.
Total Time: One hour.
Servings: 4-6
1. Drain half of the olive oil from the jar of habitas in a sauce pan and sauté your finely chopped onion. Wait until the onions achieve a delectable golden hue, then proceed to step two.
2. Add garlic, also finely sliced, to the pan, followed by diced ham and bacon until both appear cooked but not completely roasted.
3. Next, add the glass of white wine; once the wine has evaporated add the broad beans with the rest of olive oil from the jar and cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes, removing several times to make sure all ingredients are mixing well. We want them to work together in harmony, to move as one.
4. Serve with fresh French-style bread.
Li'l Tip: The recommended ham is jamón Iberico or jamón serrano, though any good ham will most likely result in an exquisite dish. This is ham we're talking about, tough to go wrong.
Li'l Tip #2: Pairs well with cold beer or red wine.
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The speed record for creating a tasty lunch of exceptional quality featuring tinned seafood? This serving suggestion. A two ingredient, two-step tapa of such exceptional quality, prepared with such ease, you'll be in awe of yourself for having the necessaries on hand so you can prepare it at any moment and solve the "What's for lunch?" question in an instant.
Total Time: 8 seconds. The all-time record.
Servings: 1 (though obviously you can repeat, as needed)
1. Pop the tin of clams and drain the brine.
2. Mix in the chili garlic sauce to taste. Everyone's got their own favored ratio of clams-to-chili-garlic-sauce, and that's great. Be you.
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This tremendous recipe, featuring our tinned mackerel, fire-roasted tomato salad, and now our Calasparra rice comes from Kaley and Mario. A traditional Ecuadorian fish in coconut sauce dish, here featuring tinned fish for obvious reasons. Did I enjoy it for lunch the next day? Immensely.
Total Time: One hour.
Servings: 4-6
1. Pour the Fire-Roasted Tomato and Pimento Salad into a blender, and blend until completely smooth.
2. Dice onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, and tomato.
3. Thinly slice basil, green onion, and garlic.
4. Add olive oil into a large pan and wait for it to heat up on high heat.
5. Add garlic into the pan and wait until it’s aromatic 1-2 minutes, then add the onion into the pan. After adding onion, wait for 3 minutes and stir continuously.
6. Next add red bell pepper and green bell. After adding the peppers, wait 5 minutes and stir continuously.
7. Next add in the Roma tomato, stir and wait for 2 minutes. Your stirring should be continuous. Don't stop stirring. That's right, keep stirring. This continuous stirring will be a theme throughout.
8. Now add your blended Fire-Roasted Tomato and Pimento Salad, wait until 70% of the water evaporates, about 5-7 minutes, while stirring continuously.
9. Next add the green onion and wait 2 minutes stir continuously.
10. Lower the heat to medium. Add the coconut milk once the mixture starts to simmer. Let it sit for 10 minutes while stirring often. Yes, you can take a pause from stirring, but you should still get back in there and stir quite a bit.
11. Add the basil into the mixture and stir continuously for 2 minutes.
12. Finally add 3-4 tins of Mackerel. Let simmer until the fish is warm, 2-3 minutes.
13. Serve with your choice of side, traditionally white rice and fried plantain.
Li'l Tip: If the stew isn’t the consistency you'd like add cornstarch to thicken and achieve what you deem the optimal consistency.
*Eagle-eyed rice experts may notice that the rice appearing above is, in fact, not our Calasparra rice. This is true. Given certain occurrences, we had to make do with what was on hand. That said, those same rice experts will agree that Calasparra rice will be great with this recipe.
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Sometimes, you have to make do with what you have on hand. Luckily, if you happen to have a croissant left from your recent trip to the bakery, and a pantry well stocked with a selection of Donostia Foods conservas, all that tinned seafood and peppers and vegetables you know and love, what you behold above can be yours for lunch. Smiles assured with each buttery bite.
Just because you’re short on time doesn’t mean you can’t treat yo’ self.
Total Time: Two, maybe three minutes, depending on how long it takes you to open the package of escalivada and how well toasted you want the croissant.
Servings: One sandwich. Obviously.
1. Toast the croissant to your liking, then slice it open and stuff it with the proportion of ventresca tuna and escalivada you feel works best for your particular croissant in order to keep it structurally sound. Croissants are delicate so proceed with care.
2. Savor the exquisite simplicity and fire-roasted goodness of a sandwich, well made.
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Want the recipe for Rhode Island Clear Chowder, "the purest of the form", from chowder champion and 2-star Michelin chef Michael Cimarusti, harkening back to time with his grandparents in Rhode Island? Just click here, the Internet will do the rest.
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When our clams in brine get a shout out on NPR member station KCRW, it's cause for celebration.
Good Food host Evan Kleiman professed her love for them as a way of getting (just about) as much flavor into her chowder as with fresh clams, but with far more ease. Always nice.
The chowder is discussed on Press Play with Madeline Brand, specifically Rhode Island Clear Chowder, "the purest of the form", absent tomato sauce or cream, light but filling, "the type a fisherman might make on the boat".
The recipe is from chowder champion and 2-star Michelin chef Michael Cimarusti.
Keep some of our clams in brine on hand in your pantry and whenever the weather turns and the chill in the air calls for chowder, you'll be ready.
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Authentic angulas, in the traditional way. For special occasions, or when you want to make any occasion special. No surimi in sight.
Total Time: 10-15 minutes.
Servings: One tin, one serving. Use more of everything if you have a nice gathering of friends and loved ones.
1. Open a tin of angulas and empty just the oil into a pan, and set aside the delicate and tiny elver eels.
2. While the olive oil is slowly warming, slice garlic as thin as you are able, then add them to the oil.
3. Once you the garlic slices have ever so slightly begun to brown, add the baby eels to the oil and heat briefly.
4. Serve in a small, earthenware dish with a tiny fork, to maintain the diminutive theme.
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A manzanilla olive called Laurence sets forth to find his place in the world, for better or worse. In this episode, his introduction to polite society, Laurence navigates the treacherous environs of a neighborhood cocktail party.
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For less anthropomorphic olives, you're in the right place. See our selection of highly-sought after stuffed manzanilla olives.
