Tag Archives: pasta alla norma

Barrific

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A food blogger walks into a bar…and reviews it! Bahahahaha…..alright, all done.

Reviews, anyone?

Let’s start with Odwalla! They were recently on sale at Whole Foods, and, um, I had fun. What can I say, I see those yellow-and-red sale tags and all but jump for joy! Yes, this is what grocery shopping does to me. Totally normal.

This kind of reminded me of a cross between a Nutrigrain bar and a Fig Newton. Had that dense, datey feel with that vague berryness in NGs. I found it pretty boring, unfortunately. The whole berries were nice, it had a decent texture, but…meh. Not bad, just nothing special.
NEXT.
Another letdown. I made my brother try some too, for a second opinion. He took two bites and looked at me with a “why do you do these things to me” expression. I wasn’t exactly excited. This would actually be a great, cookie-like treat if the first and most prevalent flavor is dates. It’s one thing to sell a date bar and advertise it as such, quite another to name something “chocolate chip peanut”, one of the best combos ever, only for those flavors to be the least obvious. The few chocolate chips thrown in helped, but not enough. 

Now this is one tasty bar. The banana nut flavors are spot on and it tastes like a particularly good and chewy piece of banana bread. I loved every bite – even more so than the Larabar version! Yum!

Speaking of Lara…

Ok, I will start out by saying that I do NOT like coconut. Why, you ask, did I buy this? Well, I’ve found that in Larabars I actually can appreciate the flavor, and I figured with chocolate thrown in, how bad can it be! (The coconut cream pie is one of my favorite flavors!) But this was…sad. It was neither chocolatey nor coconutty, just some vague middle ground between the two that was lacking in any distinct flavor at all. Maybe I just got a bad one? Oh well. 
This is the Lara I know and love. Very cinnamony and the dates added a light, fruity flavor. Plus the added texture of the nuts, this is a great bar! Came just in time too; couldn’t have made it through the last 2.5 hours of my shift without it!
Clif bars are another favorite of mine to take to work. After 3 hours of nonstop movement, I definitely feel the need for some protein.
*Sigh* Let down again. This had a really weirdy soapy(??) taste to it that I could not get over! It wasn’t very peanutty or toffee-y, just sweet and blah. But it gets points for looking pretty.
This I liked very, very much! It wasn’t too sweet and those 3 fruits came out really well and meshed well too, to my relief and surprise. Most of the Clifs are waaaay too heavy on the brown rice syrup even for my sweet teeth, but this was really well balanced.
As was this guy:
This is probably my fave Clif so far. Just like a gooey peanut butter treat with crunchy chopped peanuts – perfect. I definitely recommend this to peanut butter lovers!
I know, this is a LOT of bars! They’ve been filling my camera since the road trip and I’m just now getting around to all of ‘em, oof! I would like to throw out my personal opinion (although I probably already have) on bars: I don’t like using them as meal replacements, and unless cirsumstances are unusual, won’t eat more than 1 a day. I have always had problems with hypoglycemia and for me, they are a great and easy way to raise my blood sugar quickly when I need it (you do NOT want to be around hungry Gillian. It aint pretty.) I also discovered that when working in the coffee house when I usually get about 3 minutes to chomp something down during a 5 or 6 hour shift while making coffee and generally running around, there is nothing quite as easy to eat as these. That said, I do prefer to snack (and eat meals) on whole “real” foods, mostly because I find them more filling and my body functions better with them. I am not defending myself or anything here, I just wanted it to be known that I do not live off 4 Larabars a day, nor do I recommend it. I like Michael Pollan’s saying a lot” “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” Word.
As for real food, there’s been aplenty of that going on as well:
Supercharge Me cookies. I’m determined to maintain a constant supply. They make the best pre-yoga snack. Ever.
Oh, and they are super DUPER if you add cardamom and nutmeg along with the cinnamon. Trust me.
Fresh bread! Nothing like it. 
WAAH I miss my little Italian bakery on the way home to the apartment!!!
Sorry. Random nostalgic moment done.
Fage, raw oats, blueberries, peach and cinnamon. Happiness in a bowl.
Cream of wheat with blueberries cooked in, swirled with applesauce. Yes, I love the taste…but look how pretty!
As for that preview? Pasta Alla Norma! My aunt & uncle were in town last week and I decided it was the perfect occasion to attempt to recreate one of my favorite dishes from my cooking class this past semester. I’ll  admit, it wasn’t as good…although I have a feeling that fact that I was in Italy made it a little better…but it was still a delicious plate of pasta!
1. Buy fresh pasta. It makes a difference. And start your water boiling now – it takes freakin forever to get there.
2. Start your sauce: heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan with some chopped garlic and half a chopped onion (or one small). When the onion becomes translucent, add in 3 cans diced tomatoes, give it a stir, cover and let it cook. Just keep an eye on it and cook it low; if I don’t burn it, I promise you won’t!
3. Get a big ole eggplant (or 3ish small ones) and cut it into rounds, pretty thin. Dust both sides of all of them with some flour – this will keep the oil from completely saturating the eggplant when it goes in the pan and leaving them crispy.
4. Heat up some more olive oil in a pan and start throwing the eggplants in. I gave them about half a monute or so, flipped them over, then put them on paper towels to drain and blotted the tops lightly with another towel. [Fyi, I didn't actually make these in my class - I worked on a different dish that day - so I was going with what I remembered seeing others do. Worked for me!]
5. Your water has GOT to be boiling by now, right? Good. Throw in the pasta and check it in 3 minutes – fresh cooks faster than dried. No one likes soggy pasta! Al dente just tastes better and will hold up the dish better.
To plate, toss the pasta in your wonderfully fresh-tasting tomato sauce. Top with the eggplants rounds, then with some basil, then with some parmesan or grana padano. 
Mangia bene!

~Namaste~

Baker-to-be

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Getting up for Italian is not getting easier. Even if I go to bed at a reasonable hour, the sound of my alarm always comes too early. The snooze button and I are good friends.
Today was busier than usual; came home from Italian to make my daily oats:
Chocolate-orange yogurt oats (oats with cocoa powder with orange yogurt). I’m actually not even a fan of chocolate-orange things, but variety is the spice of life. And it’s hard to make oats that I won’t eat :)
I had barely enough time to scarf this before I had to run back out to meet an Italian student who wants to learn English. My school here runs a program that hooks an English speaking student with an Italian and they exchange conversation to improve our respective language skills. My partner was a really cool chick…but she has been learning English since she as 8. Left me and my 3 semesters of Italian in the dust. But I’m so grateful for the practice. Sono determinata parlare l’italiano correntemente!
We talked for a while, and by the time we finished it was too late to bother walking home before my cooking class, so I just read a bit outside our classroom/kitchen. Class was, as per usual, completely wonderful. The menu today was fresh bruschetta – for which we (sepcifically, I) made the bread, pasta alla norma, chicken marsala, and an apple cake.
I was on Team Bruschetta, and I have definitively decided that baking is my favorite activity next to yoga. Making bread is the BEST therapy. And eating fresh bread ain’t so bad either!
For the bruschetta, we first blanched the tomatoes to make them easy to peel. We peeled, seeded, and cubed them, and then made a kind of “cream” simply by blending the seeds and skin together with a tiny bit of olive oil using an immersion blender:
 
All the wonderful lycopene, a a kick-butt antioxidant, is found in the seeds and skins, so you want to find a way to incoporate them into your recipe. You mix this with the chopped tomatoes and a little basil, salt, pepper, and oregano:
As for the bread, it was SO easy. Melt yeast into some lukewarm water and mix it with the flour, essentially. We added fennel, cumin, and sesame seeds to boost the flavor and nutritional profile of the bread:
Ta-da! I apologize for the semi-icky picture, the bread needed to be toasted with the tomatoes and it ended up coming out last – it made a great dessert!
Pasta Alla Norma is a Sicilian dish named for a character in a Bellini opera. It. was. a-ma-zing.
It’s your basic pasta with marinara sauce, then fried eggplant (I have taken to calling them eggplant chips), then pecorino and basil on top. Now, when I say fried, we are not talking your typical battered in refined flour and drenched in nasty hydrogenated oil. For these babies, you cut the eggplant into chip-like slices and dust (very important – dust, not drench!) them with flour. The flour protects the eggplant from being saturated with oil and instead creates a crispy texture on the outside that is to LIVE for! You pan fry your dusted eggplant in sunflower (or vegetable) oil. E voila:
So. good.
There was also chicken marsala, which was tasty enough but I wouldn’t have missed it either. I’m honestly not a fan of the dish, regardless of how well it is prepared.
Here it is in the prep phase:
That’s the chicken in the pan on the left; the mushroom sauce is on the stove. I will say this – it was very pretty and colorful, which always makes it taste better!
The dessert was torta delle mele, or apple cake. 80% apples, with a spongy batter in the middle. It was very good. The cake part actually reminded me of this wonderful pancake-like baked dish that a neighbor used to make that was so good, I can still remember the taste. It’s hard to explain – almost like a custard, I suppose.
I’m not much for fruit pies, but this cake was excellent. Very light, lovely flavor. A good early fall dish, I think. And super healthy!
I have yet to show you my APRON:
 
It may be a little embarassing how excited I was to get this. But I don’t care. Chef Gillian is on the job!
Ooh, Chef Gillian. That has a nice little ring to it, doesn’t it?
I wanted to get out more and walk around, but that meal was so satiating that I came home, bummed around a bit on the computer and eventually fell asleep. I was running around and busy from about 7 to 2:30, and it was nap time. My problem is if I nap in the late afternoon, 9 out of 10 times I wake up with an awful stomach ache. Something about naps totally unsettles my stomach. Dinner was still pretty great though!
I was craving a big bowl of GREEN, and that’s exactly what I had! Spinach and arugula with tomato and pecorino dressed in a little bit of olive oil, good balsamic, and pesto. The pesto made this salad – if you haven’t tried it before, DO IT. This is one of the best salads I think I have ever created. I think a good rule is the simpler the ingredients, the better the taste. Works for me!
I have decreed tomorrow David Day, as I have been in Florence mere miles away from The David and still have yet to pay him a visit – time to fix that! I also have a wicked recipe up my sleeve and my roommates are going to be my guinea pigs…get excited. The Chef is in.
~Namaste~