Artichoke and Olive Sauce with Conchiglioni

(picture taken before the pasta was added)

I have this recipe clipped from the Milwaukee paper and taped to a card, so I know that we deemed it cardworthy at some point in time. I searched for the original recipe and came up with the link listed above. Yep, it's the same recipe.

I really wasn't thinking the weekend before I made this since I was at the Italian grocery store, Glorioso's, the weekend before I made this. I'm quite sure that I have never made this with conchiglioni shaped pasta ever before and even had to do some research to find out what shape that is. Not surprisingly, it's shell shaped.....it's all in the first five letters of the word, I guess.

I omitted the walnuts due allergy. I used roasted peppers, and I used an entire can of black olives. I used a can of artichokes rather than marinated artichokes. But, other than the basil mentioned below I made it just like the recipe. HAHA.

Not only did I miss out on the pasta shape, but I missed out on using fresh basil. It did look good, but I had made a note on my recipe card that dried was OK so I went with that while awaiting the basil in my garden to grow. My parents were at the store with us and even asked if we wanted to split the bag of basil being sold.

Glorioso's is a fun place to shop and is even better now that there is a seating area. Panini sandwiches, pizza, gelato....yum. I just love looking at the stocked shelves. I had a full refrigerator when I was there, so I didn't feel like I needed to get anything on Sunday. But next time......

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Checkerboard Pizza

We're fans of roasted red peppers and olives, so we love this pizza.

The recipe is from the book, Pizza by James McNair. I know that I have talked about this book before, especially because it's the dough recipe I often use. The credit for this pizza goes to him; however, I greatly reduced the cheese quantities mentioned in the original.

This time I used some fresh sliced mozzarella cheese on top of the crust before topping the pizza in the cool checkerboard pattern. The toppings were roasted red peppers (from a jar this time) and black olives, both roughly chopped. I put some minced garlic on it and a small amount of shredded Parmesan over the other toppings(that is the picture below). The mozzarella was easy to slice because my parents gave us the very cool cheese knife last year for Christmas. I don't really understand how this knife can work so well to cut hard cheese or soft cheese, but it does work really well.

I put the crust in a round pan before I thought about it. I like how it looks a bit better if the pizza is a rectangle, but after the crust was in the pan I decided to go with colored wedges instead.

This would be a very fun thing to serve at a poker party:)
Not that I have poker parties, but I just think it would be a good idea. Maybe if my friend, Carol, who went to the World Series of Poker on a sweepstakes entry has another poker party I'll take this.

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Dinner Salad #1 - Salad Niçoise

(photo from greenmarketrecipes.com)

As promised, below is the first of two dinner salads we are eating this week...

Salad Niçoise is a traditional French Salad from the southern part of France, namely the area around Nice.  The main ingredients are Tuna, hard boiled egg, green beans, tomatoes,  red or white baby or fingerling potatoes and Olives Niçoise.  My family spent 4 years living outside of Nice in France and this became a staple in our summer diet.  In the traditional salad, the tuna is rare, cooked tuna steak cooked with peppery spices.  For my quick summer meal stateside, I am using canned tuna, much to my husband's and son's dismay. The traditional salad also calls for Bibb or Butter lettuce.  I will be trying to use up some of my overabundance of lettuce, so we are going to have a mixture of Butter, Romaine and Red Leaf lettuce.

Salad Nicoise for 4

Mixture of lettuce or all bibb lettuce, enough for a dinner salad for 4
6 baby red or white potatoes, cooked but not mushy, sliced or quartered
2 cans Albacore or regular tuna packed in water, drained
4 hardboiled eggs, sliced or quartered
4-6 Campari Tomatoes, quartered or 12  grape tomatoes, halved
1/4-1/2 lb green beans, cooked (this week I didn't have green beans, so I omitted these)
Pitted Niçoise Olives, or Kalamata if you can't find Niçoise

Dressing

2-3 T Red Wine Vinegar
Heaping T Dijon Mustard (more or less to taste)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/4-1/2 cup Olive oil

Whisk vinegar with mustard, salt and pepper.  Continue whisking while adding olive oil in a continuous stream.  Dressing should take on a creamy  constistency.  Adjust flavors to suit your preferences. This is a very traditional French Dressing.

Layer lettuce, then rest of ingredients in a larg shallow bowl and drizzle with dressing. Serve with good french bread or the bread I blogged about in June!

I have attached an Amazon Link for Olives Niçoise from an olive mill in Opio, France.  This mill was about 2 miles from our house in France and we actually had olives from our yard turned into olive oil at this mill.  When we lived in France, all of our olives and olive oil came from this mill and when we do go back to France to visit, we are sure to bring oil and olives home with us!