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Pasta is the love of my foodie life. If I am looking for comfort, I always go with pasta. It is probably the thing I crave most, and we eat pasta for dinner at least once a week.

So I was happy to make this week’s Craving Ellie pick, chosen by Farah of Confessions of a Novice Baker, Linguini with Shrimp & Vegetables.

I have actually made this recipe before as written and with variations. I usually like to melt a few anchovies into the olive oil, add some fresh thyme, and I cook the tomatoes longer than Ellie calls for. This time though, I added some chanterelle mushrooms because we got them for a steal at Costco over the weekend, and I added some fresh capers that our friend Dianna brought us back from Italy. We are generally not caper people, but these were so briney and delicious. I think Dianna described them as a very capery caper. Thanks Dianna!

Yay for Chanterelle mushrooms!

Yum!

Here is my recipe as I made it this time. It was great! You end up with a really light but flavorful sauce bulked up with lots of yummy veggies and shrimp. And of course something like this is forever adaptable to what you like and what you have on hand.

Pasta with Shrimp & Vegetables
Adapted by Sara at imafoodblog.com from Ellie Krieger
The Food You Crave, page 160-161
Serves 4

• 1 pound spaghetti or linguini
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 8 ounces Chanterelle or any other mushroom
• 1 bunch asparagus stalks, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1 container cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 cup capers
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 cup freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Freshly grated Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to the directions on the box. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking water.
2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over a medium-high heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute.
3. Add the mushrooms and saute until all the water has cooked out and evaporated.
4. Add the asparagus and cherry tomatoes and saute until the tomatoes begin to break down.
5. Add the capers, lemon juice, white wine, and the reserved cup pasta water (as needed) to the skillet. Let simmer until the liquid is reduced by about half.
6. Add the shrimp and cook for 3-4 minutes, until they turn pink. Stir in the parsley and then add the pasta to the pan and mix. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Add a healthy dousing of Parm. cheese to each plate.

This week it was my turn again to pick something for Craving Ellie in My Belly, and I chose a New York Breakfast.

Like Ellie, I grew up in New York (I may have mentioned that a bazillion times on this blog already), and thus I grew up eating lots of bagels with cream cheese and various types of smoked fish. My favorite being nova lox. I know this is something that people either love or hate, so I apologize to my Craving Ellie girls who fall in the latter category.

However, I was in New York a few weeks ago and every time I go I always ingest tons of lox while I am there and then bring some back with me and freeze it. So I was inspired by my trip up there to pick this recipe since I knew I would be flush with smoked fish.

Before we get to the recipe, let’s talk fish. Lox, nova, nova lox - it’s all the same thing. And what it is is cured and cold smoked salmon. Yum! It is the stuff of dreams (well, my dreams). The name is derived from the German word “lachs” and the Yiddish word “laks", both meaning salmon. Nova can sometimes be confused with smoked salmon, which are indeed two completely different things. Smoked salmon is hot smoked, so it is cooked, which provides a very different final texture and flavor compared to a cold smoked salmon. Cold smoked salmon is technically raw because it never reaches over 90F. You may have also heard of Gravlax, which is a Nordic preparation of salmon. In Gravlax, the salmon is cured with a spice rub usually containing salt, sugar, paprika and dill. It is then weighed down to push out all the moisture and cures for about 3 days. Gravlax is not smoked at all, so it is also a raw application of salmon. I love salmon - raw and cooked - and all of these different preparation are delicious. However, nova remains my favorite.

This sandwich is really simple to make and it does not have many ingredients. So that is why it is important that all the ingredients are top quality, because you will taste everything. I hope everyone who made this was able to find good lox. I prefer to get mine from a deli where they slice it off the fish themselves on site. I try to stay away from the vacuum sealed stuff, but it will do in a pinch. I also tried some lox from Whole Foods once and found it to be horrendous. This is why I usually don’t buy it unless I am in New York, but I am bit of a snob, so just ignore me.

I made my New York Breakfast a bit different than Ellie’s directions.

Here are my changes:

1. I used thinly sliced rye bread instead of pumpernickel.
2. I used full fat chive cream cheese instead of neufchatel cheese. I did this because Nick and I have decided that besides the fact that NY bagels are superior to every other bagel, another reason why our NY bagel sandwiches are always so good is because of the delicious homemade cream cheese you get at some of the bagel shops and delis. So I picked up some quality cream cheese from a NY style bagel store near my office in Maryland. Since I got chive flavored cream cheese (my favorite) I did not add extra chives.
3. I left out the cucumber and tomato.

So my sandwich consisted of well toasted rye bread, cream cheese, thinly sliced red onion, lox, and some more red onion. I hope everyone who made this enjoyed it. I sure did. And this is not the only way I like to eat lox, check out my post about lox, eggs, and onions. Also yum!

Lox:

And yummy cream cheese:

I have no cute story or anecdote about linguine with clam sauce. This dish is really just a combination of some of my favorite ingredients - pasta, clams, garlic, and of course parmigianno cheese.

I make this every few months when I get a hankering for it. It is always so satisfying. I love the simple briny sauce with loads of garlic and a little bit of creaminess for some parmigianno or romano cheese.

I actually based this recipe on, gasp, a really old Rachael Ray recipe that I found in my recipe binder. You can find the original recipe on the Food Network website. This will be one of the only times that you will see anything Rachael Ray related on this blog, so savor this post RR fans.

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Jambalaya is not something that I would normally choose to make on my own. I generally don’t like food that is overly spicy and I definitely associate hot and spicy with creole food.

However, this week’s Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe Jambalaya with Shrimp and Ham was absolutely delicious. I honestly don’t know how close to an authentic jambalaya it truly is, but we both really enjoyed it and I will be making it again for sure.

This jambalaya was pretty simple to make. There is minimal chopping, just some onions, garlic, and red & green peppers. The spice blend of paprika (I used smoked because that’s all I had), oregano, thyme, and cayenne pepper give a lot of flavor, with a bay leaf or 2 added in for good measure. I doubled all the spices except the cayenne pepper since I read some Food Network reviews that said this was a little bland. This worked out well because the flavor was great and the amount of spice was perfect for me. (I could still taste the food but my nose was running a bit while eating it)

Instead of ham I used 2 chicken sausages that I had in the freezer and I used a pound of fresh tiger shrimp. To cook the sausage I poached it until fully cooked, rested it for about 10 minutes, then sliced it and put the slices under the broiler until they were brown and crispy. All that meat and seafood added a lot of chunky heartiness to the bowl. I also used fire roasted crushed tomatoes instead of diced because I like a smoother tomato texture in things like this.

My bowl was chock full of tasty sausage, shrimp, veggies, and perfectly cooked rice (one of my favorite foods). I love a healthy meal that is hearty like this. It is great to eat something that is good for you and be so satisfied afterwards. This was even great as lunch leftovers a few days later.

This yummy jambalaya was picked by Anonymous New York. Check out her blog and the other Craving Ellie ladies to see what they thought of this.

You can find Ellie Krieger’s recipe here or on page 236 of The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life.

Have you ever had Kobe beef? The real deal, straight from Japan, beer drinking, Sake massaged KOBE BEEF? If you answered “yes” to this question, you’ll have no problem with this one:

“If someone is giving me $250 to create a fabulous meal from starting ingredients of my choice, what should I make?”

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Fried fish is awesome. There is a stand at the farmers market by Nick’s parents house in PA that has the most amazing fried halibut sandwich. They coat the fish in dry pancake mix, then egg, then panko and deep fry it to deliciouness. On a potato roll with their homemade cocktail sauce, it is heaven. I would eat one for every meal if I could, but alas, I cannot.

So let’s be real here, these baked fish fingers leave a lot to be desired if you are looking for some deep fried goodness. However, they are pretty delicious and smothered in this guilt free yogurt tarter like sauce, they are even better.

I am so glad that Anne from Rainforest Recipes chose these Crispy Fish Fingers as her pick this week for Craving Ellie in My Belly.

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I have a confession to make. I don’t enjoy cooking fish. My confidence in the kitchen is at its lowest when I am cooking fish. Now, this does not include shellfish. We eat A LOT of shellfish, so I have become very comfortable handling it. However, hand me a piece of fish, and I will immediately have visions of how I am going to ruin it.

I have a few basic fish recipes that I can execute well, but besides that I am always worried that it is going to fall apart or that I am going to under cook it and that usually leads to over cooking. A few months ago I even bought myself a copy of Fish Without a Doubt: The Cook’s Essential Companion by Rick Moonen, Roy Finamore. I have only made one or two things from it, that were not all that great, so it sits on my book shelf under utilized.

Lately, I have been making more fish in an effort to eat healthier, so I am working on my fish issues. When I saw this recipe for baked cod on Serious Eats I was actually excited to make it! It is baked which is my preferred method to make fish, and includes some great Sicilian flavor combinations. The recipe is by Gina DiPalma who is the pastry chef at Mario Batali’s (and Joseph Bastianich’s) Babbo.

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I think I must have been hungry one day while trolling my Google reader. It had to be the hunger that possessed me to bookmark a recipe I saw on Serious Eats for Venetian Spaghetti, which is essentially pasta with a sardine cream sauce. I had never eaten sardines before, but I do love myself some pasta. The picture looked great and the SE writer said that it tasted a lot like clam chowder, which I also love.

So I figured I would give this one a try, with our pizza rule in mind. The original recipe can be found at Food & Wine.

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Well, it’s late, but it’s still Thursday. And I came home from work like a good girl and made this week’s Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe. This week Liz of The Not So Skinny Kitchen picked Thai Style Halibut with Coconut Curry Broth on page 232 of The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger. (Jeez, can I fit any more links into that paragraph?)

I have to say that Nick and I are generally anti-curry. It’s just not really something that appeals to us. Though I have not really had much experience eating curries, I find the aromas to be unpleasant.

I always associated curry with Indian food. However, it was not until we were at the grocery store that I realized that there is Thai curry and Indian curry. We picked up a can of Thai red curry paste, read the ingredients and thought maybe this would be better than we thought.

I was still a bit hesitant to make this with the curry, but I figured, what the hell. If it’s terrible, we have a pizza rule. (Which is, you can make anything you want, but if it sucks, you have to pay for the pizza).

I used tilapia instead of halibut and I made the sauce per the recipe. I used my own chicken stock and surprisingly I already had a can of light coconut milk in the house (I am sure this is leftover from one of Geoff’s escapades in our kitchen ). Now, if you know us at all, then you know that I definitely left out the grossness that is cilantro. I was being adventurous, but I was not trying to ruin my meal entirely!

I served this with a brown rice/wild rice mixture and instead of steaming the spinach, I sautéed it in a ton of garlic and Nick’s garlic basil olive oil. I love super garlicky spinach.

The verdict: This was surprisingly good. I don’t enjoy spicy foods, so for me, this had just the right amount of spice. Though if you do like spice, I could see how you would want it to be much spicier. The flavors were good and the curry was not nearly as offensive as I was expecting it to be.

Nick also liked this a lot. I believe his exact words were “I like this, and I don’t care if you don’t". That’s my man. Always sweet and charming.

So, I’m glad I stepped out of the comfort zone here and made this. I don’t know that I will be using Thai curry paste a lot, but I won’t completely write it off in the future. And I would make something with it upon request by my newly curry loving boyfriend Nick.

Check out what the rest of ladies thought at the Craving Ellie blogroll.

I don’t put much stock into the USDA guidelines for cooking meats. I like my steak barely cooked, fish and shell fish completely raw (or close to it), my pork slightly pink on the inside, and even my poultry cooked JUST to the point of safety. The reason? Because it’s delicious that way, plain and simple - and because I trust the producers and my purveyors implicitly. I do not recommend doing so to others, especially those who are already at a greater risk of getting “really” sick, i.e. very young/old, immuno-compromised, or taking medications that mess with digestion, etc. or people who don’t have a personal relationship with a grocer to insure their protein is of the highest quality and produced adhering to the strictest safety standards.

All of that said, this is one of my absolute favorite things to make. If you live outside of a large city, good luck getting the sushi grade (frozen within a certain amount of time to a ridiculously low temperature and held there to inhibit bacterial growth - though technically, this is not regulated by the FDA) tuna. Hell, I can’t even get it regularly here unless I call in advance and have it held for me - EVERYONE BUYS THIS STUFF AS SOON AS IT HITS THE FISH CASE. Why? Because is absolutely exquisite, possibly the best tasting fish ever.

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