Italian String Beans

Serves 6-8

If you're looking for a tasty way to enjoy vegetables, my Italian string beans may be just what you've been looking for. Boiled in olive oil and garnished with garlic, this is a delicious vegetarian/vegan side dish guaranteed to even make meat eaters' mouths water! Italian string beans are very versatile; they can easily be used as a side dish with pasta or rice or by itself as a healthy snack or an hors devour.

You will need:

• a large pot
• a large strainer
• a teaspoon
• a tablespoon
• a large knife
• a measuring cup
• a cutting board

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of water
• 1 lb. of fresh (not canned) green string beans
• 6 sliced garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of pepper
• 6 tablespoons of olive oil
  

Note: It is important that you use fresh string beans for this recipe and not string beans from a can, as they are too soft and will turn into mush in the boiling water. Also, you should use 1 cup of water for each pound of string beans you plan to use. For example, 8 ounces of string beans would require half a cup of water; two pounds need two cups.

Start prepping the string beans by cutting off their tips, then place the cut string beans into the strainer and rinse under cold water. If you're not sure how much of each end you should cut off, your tipless string beans should look like this.

Place the rinsed string beans and sliced garlic into a large pot. Add one teaspoon each of salt and pepper along with 6 tablespoons of olive oil. Then let the ingredients boil for about 90 minutes, until the string beans are nice and chewy.

nce the water begins to boil, you will notice that the garlic turns to mush and fuses itself with the string beans and both flavors fuse with the water. You can use this leftover juice as a garlic marinade for another dish; it tastes great poured over a light, lean meat like chicken or fish. You will want to make this dish in a large quantity because it goes very quickly.

Garlic: Bad For Your Breath, Great For Your Palate

When some people hear the word garlic they automatically think of bad breath. But garlic has been known for thousands of years as both medicine and food. But this is a cooking blog, not a medical blog, so I'm going to discuss the culinary aspects of garlic, some of which you may be unfamiliar with.

I like to use garlic in every dish I prepare. Garlic can be crushed, minced, grated, or roasted. When I make a whole chicken I clean out the inside and rub it with a little salt then I take one small onion, a lemon, an orange and about half of a garlic head which equals about 8 cloves and I stuff it in the cavity. When the chicken is done roasting I discard the remaining.

Although people usually associate garlic with Italian cuisine, I was surprised to find out from the U.N. that the four largest producers of garlic in the world are China, India, South Korea and the United States, respectively. Italy isn't even in the top 20! Garlic is also a main ingredient in Latin American food. I thumb my nose at the bottled Puerto Rican sofrito and make my own!

And what Italian meal is complete without garlic bread? I use parsley in my garlic bread because it tends to weaken the strong scent and taste of the garlic.

Garlic bread recipe:

• one baking pan or cookie sheet
• a tablespoon
• one loaf of Italian bread
  
• 8 cloves of garlic, finely grated
  
• 2 tablespoons of parsley
• 2 table spoons of butter
• 2 handfuls of grated parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper
  

Cut the Italian bread length wide and smear the butter all over it. Add the grated garlic, parsley, parmesan cheese to the butter and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown. And if you're nervous about your breath smelling bad from eating garlic bread, just make sure everyone at the table has some so no one will make fun of your garlic breath. Also, if you're worried about getting the garlic smell on your hands, just dip your hands underwater or under a running faucet and rub your palms and fingers against a stainless steel utensil like a fork or spoon. That should get most of the smell out from your hands.

I leave you with my top ten ways to enjoy garlic.

1. Garlic bread
2. Garlic butter (tastes great on corn on the cob and baked potatoes!)
   
3. Spicy shrimp with garlic and white rice
4. Roasted garlic mashed potatoes
5. Garlic fries
6. Sofrito
7. Whole chicken
   
8. Pork shoulder
9. Garlic dip with vegetables of corn chips
10. Cream of garlic soup

How do you like your garlic? Let me know in the comment area of this post and I'll try and come up with a recipe for it, or a twist on that recipe, if you already have it.

Spinach Pete (pronounced “pee-tay”)

Serves 6 to 8

Brighten up your holiday spirit with a yummy little snack for you and your family. This recipe is great to sneak in some iron and vitamins for kids. Sometimes children turn down vegetables. Pete is a name I came up with for this dish. I grew up in Morris Park, a neighborhood in the Bronx with a large Albanian community and in Albanian pete means “spun dough”. This recipe will keep your kids asking for more just in the matter of time. The cheese can also be substituted with tofu for vegans or those who are lactose intolerant. Sliced pete makes for a great hors devour guaranteed to be the hit of any party.

You will need:

• 1 large mixing bowl

• 1 hand or kitchen towel

• 1 pizza pan or cookie sheet

• 1 plastic container (large enough to hold 1 lb. of pizza dough)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. of frozen or refrigerated pizza dough

• 5-8 oz. of frozen or canned spinach

• 4 oz. of crumbled feta cheese

• 8 oz. of cream cheese

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 10 oz. of shredded mozzarella whole or skin milk

• 1 medium-sized onion

• 3 tablespoons of any oil (olive, corn, canola, vegetable, peanut, etc.)

• 22 oz. of tofu (if you are substituting cheese)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Start by defrosting the spinach and if necessary, the pizza dough. Once defrosted, place the pizza dough in a plastic container with the olive oil poured inside the container. Let the dough sit in the oil for about a half hour flipping it over to make sure both sides are coated with the oil. Take the spinach and wrap it in a kitchen or hand towel and squeeze all of the water out of the spinach. This technique works well because the towel gets almost all of the moisture out and soaks it up so you don’t get spinach water on your hands or clothes.

In a large mixing bowl combine the feta, mozzarella, and cream cheese. Reserve about 3 oz. of mozzarella cheese on the side for the top of your pete. Chop the onion and garlic finely and place it into the bowl. Add the drained spinach into the bowl and cover the bowl with clear wrap and leave it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes or until chilled. By now your spinach/cheese compound should look like this.

Remove the now oil-soaked dough from the container and smooth it out over the cookie sheet, spreading it out into a flat circle as if you were making a pizza. It doesn't have to be a perfect circle, so don't go nuts trying to get it right. Scoop out the cheese/spinach mixture from the bowl and place it in the center of the dough. Spread the mixture out so that it covers all of the dough except for the edges of the circle. Then roll the dough up as if you were rolling up a jelly roll or a burrito. It should look like this.

After rolling the pete up into a very long tube shape, tuck the ends together to make the pete form into a ring. It should look like a big doughnut or a bunt cake. Make sure the height is even all around to prevent one side of the pete from cooking faster than the other. Again, we're not aiming for complete perfection, so it just needs to be even enough. Glaze the top of the pete with oil and lightly sprinkle 1/4 cup of mozzarella on top of the pete as a garnish. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Pete is best served when warm and can be sliced up like a cake.

Serving suggestions: Don't let that hole in the middle of the pete go to waste! You can fill that empty space with baby tomatoes, like I did in the picture. Another cool idea could be placing some parsley for presentation, a small bowl of ranch dressing with a teaspoon to scoop it up and pour over individual pete pieces.

If you try this recipe, drop me a comment a let me know how it worked for you. Also, let me know how you served the pete. The limit is literally bound by your own imagination.