This tasty beauty is our all time favorite summer salad. It is a beautiful combo of tons of our favorite stuff… huge Argentinian Red shrimp marinated in spicy Jerk spices and grilled on the BBQ, smoked bacon chopped into bits, super sweet cherry tomatoes, ripe lush avocados, creamy boiled pasture raised eggs, smoky BBQ grilled corn-on-the-cob kernels, Romaine and herb salad and crumbled Blue Cheese.
We are lucky to live along the ocean, on the Monterey Bay, and our wild savory kitchen is often filled with the abundance of seafood harvested just a few miles away. We gather mussels from the tide pools and rocks, fish I catch from the Bay, and Dungeness crabs and squid from boats just offshore. So the Frutti di Mare dishes are always changing, we use whatever is available and fresh. This dish is seafood heaven, with mussels, crabs, lobsters, wild caught bay scallops, squid, baby octopus, and our favorite shrimp, Argentinian Red shrimp from the icy waters off Argentina. Served with reduced wine and clam broth, garden fresh tomatoes and tons of garlic, the fruits of the sea are a huge part of the good life.
In every family there are those go-to comfort meals that are quick and yummy and filling. This is one of our family favorites. Much of the DNA in our kids’ bodies was built on this dish… that’s how many times we made it. Our kids just love it, and it’s so easy. It’s basically a hard seared garden fresh zucchini pizza, with tons of umami flavors everyone loves.
The flavor combo of spicy pork with steamed mussels is a marriage made in umami heaven. ’Nduja is a spreadable pork sausage originally from southern Italy, and is a fantastic flavoring for just about any seafood pasta. You can easily find ‘Nduja online (like Amazon) or at an Italian market. It keeps for a long time in the refrigerator and very little is needed for each dish. When the family gathers for holidays and special events, we often harvest our own wild mussels along the Pacific coast, and the hunt becomes a joyful raucous adventure for everyone, including our little ones. When timed properly with low tides, it’s great fun… we just always keep one eye out for the occasional big wave.
We are thrilled to bring to you one of our favorite dishes from our friend, Dale Gray, the beloved cook behind the Instagram account @thedaleyplated and her amazing blog, and her beautiful new cookbook South of Somewhere. This dish is inspired by classic Spanish cuisine which first sears the chicken in olive oil and then, when the chicken is removed to rest, the hot oils are joined by the garlic, onion and chorizo, and simmered until aromatic and turning a rustic red from the paprika in the chorizo.
I had a close friend who was Cajun and he once took me to a small village in southern Louisiana where he grew up, not too far from the town of St. Martinville, famous for the statue of Evangeline, the High Priestess of myth and poetic legend among the Cajun and a powerful symbol of the Acadian diaspora. (The real person’s name was Emmeline Labiche, and the truth is better than Romeo and Juliet, but that’s a story for the next cookbook.) I had written about the Cajun people in a novel so I was familiar with their culture, food and society. One reason for my passion for Cajun food is that my mother’s side of the family has roots in the French Canadian community of Acadia and thus are the remnants of the Acadian people, who were cast out of their homes and lands by the English army in 1755 to wander unwanted along the Eastern seaboard of America for decades. They finally found a home in the bayous of Louisiana, so it’s completely understandable that traditionally the Cajuns are a people who wanted to be left in peace.
If you are a lover of classic American chowders, like Boston clam chowder, you will love this rich sumptuous Manhattan style.
This dish is so much fun, and kid approved in our home. These jumbo pasta shells are stuffed with tasty Italian sausage and three of our favorite Italian cheeses… ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella.
Paella is the signature meal of Spain, a national pride, and yet almost no one fully agrees on how exactly it should be made. It is a controversial meal for many reasons… starting with the simple fact that it is a huge shallow pan loaded down with complex and expensive ingredients which completely vary from home to home, town to town, restaurant to restaurant, and from region to region in Spain. Paella in Madrid is very different from that in Seville. But at the same time, like Bouillabaisse from France, Paella is a classic meal so identified with the soul of the country that it naturally comes laden with emotion, memory, tradition, pride, and a sensory longing for the authenticity of the time and place of one’s upbringing.
The Cajun people of Louisiana have a long, proud and emotionally powerful history and tradition… and they are a strong part of my Mother’s side of the family. She was French-Canadian, and was born within the bloodline of the Acadian people.
This bad boy is not your momma’s Sloppy Joe’s… no ketchup, yellow mustard or chili powder. This version is super umami, with wonderful complex flavors and by far the best one we’ve ever tasted.
Every once in a while we like to look back at some of our favorite savory homemade pizzas and share them. We love homemade pizza, it brings the family together like no other meal!
This is one of the most popular and beloved curry dishes of all, served in Indian restaurants around the world. It’s insanely creamy and luscious, with wildly aromatic spices many of which are probably in most kitchen cabinets. This is an easy dish to make and yet deeply savory and umami.
For us, this the most savory of all our chowders… combining caramelized salmon with the fresh corn cob kernels. The smoky burnt bits of the salmon are crazy good with the blistered cherry tomatoes and the intensely fruity and umami flavors of the mushrooms… all in a creamy sherry and tarragon sauce.