About jacky grace

I grew up in an Italian house with big meals, big flavors and big voices. My husband comes from an even bigger Greek and Armenian house with even bigger food and voices. Here in our tiny city kitchen, we adapt our family recipes for our small space without sacrificing any of the flavors, traditions or love.

Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus

Posted on July 26, 2013 by jacky grace

I’m so thankful I’m Italian.

For many reasons really.

But mostly for the food

And for the ease of preparation of the food

And for how easy entertaining is if you just whip up a bunch of Italian appetizers and antipasto.

One of my favorites for the summer?

Prosciutto wrapped asparagus.

Spring and summer is when you can find the really thin, really tender pencil asparagus. That’s my favorite.

All you need is asparagus, prosciutto and some olive oil.

We had about ten people over for drinks and I made an assortment of small plates.

I used a pound of asparagus and a half pound of prosciutto.

Preheat the oven to 400.

Line a cookie sheet with foil. Nobody likes cleanup when you’re having a cocktail party.

Wash the asparagus and cut off the bottom fibrous part. I peeled some of the thicker pieces too.

No snap each asparagus spear in half and place the two half together.

Take a piece of prosciutto and wrap it around each asparagus bundle.

Set up an assembly line and keep going until all the asparagus is wrapped.

Drizzle with olive oil and black pepper. The prosciutto I got was really salty so I didn’t add salty. Taste test a piece and see if you think yours needs salt though as all prosciutto varies.

Bake for about twenty minutes, plate ’em up and watch ’em go!

Fruit and Nut Couscous Salad

Posted on July 25, 2013 by jacky grace

Usually, I’m good with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some fruit for lunch at work. When it’s really hot, yogurt with some fruit and homemade nutella granola are my go to.

But sometimes I need something different.

Salad are great and so are leftovers.

But I didn’t really want something savory for lunch. I didn’t want something too sweet either (vanilla yogurt and nutella granola straddles the line between lunch and dessert, I’ll admit).

So on days like this, I reach for couscous.

Quick cook couscous is one of the greatest inventions ever. Pour it in a bowl, add some boiling water, cover for a few minutes and boom! couscous. You can let it sit and steam while you make your breakfast.

Once you have the couscous cooked you can pretty much add anything you want to it.

Today, I went with some chopped dried apricots and plums, some chopped roasted pecans and a lot of cinnamon. I had these things on hand, so go with whatever is in your pantry.

The grains are filling. The dried fruit is chewy with enough sweetness. The nuts add some crunch and some protein. And cinnamon is just the best spice in the world.

Whip some up.

Make your coworkers jealous.

Fajita Night

Posted on July 24, 2013 by jacky grace

I love Mexican food for many reasons. First, of course, is for the taste.

The fresh crisp vegetables, the creamy avocado, the spices. Such great textural and flavor combinations. Cool sour cream against the heat of a chili. Soft tortillas and crunch peppers.

The second reason to love Mexican is how fast you can get dinner on the table when you do a Mexican night.

We make tacos a lot. Tons of variations, too.

But I haven’t made fajitas in a while.

You can buy a kit at the store, but you can just as easily make your own. The kit doesn’t save you much time any way – it really just puts the spice packet and the tortillas in the same box.

I made chicken fajitas, but you can use any kind of meat you want, or you can go vegetarian with it. Maybe add some black beans for the protein. Or tofu. If you’re feeling daring.

So you will need

chicken breast
3 peppers (any color, I used green because they were cheapest), diced
1 onion, diced
vegetable oil
taco or fajita seasoning (it’s in a packet- it’s premixed with all those great flavors)
toppings as desired (I made my avocado yogurt dip and then added some shredded cabbage and cheese)

Preheat the oven to 400.

Place the chicken breasts on a foil lined baking dish. You want something with sides so the oil and spices won’t drip when you take the pan out (yes, I’ve made a mess of my stove before).

Drizzle some vegetable and some of the seasoning mix over the chicken. Add more if you want more spice and less for less. Totally up to you.

Pop the chicken in the oven and let cook until the juices run clear. You can also cut it open and check the coloring since we’re just going to shred the chicken later.

While the chicken bakes, add some vegetable oil and the diced peppers and onion to a pan.

Sprinkle over more of the seasoning mix. Stir and let cook until the veggies are soft.

When the juices are clear and the pinkness is cooked out of the chicken, remove from the oven and slice it up into bite size pieces.

Add the shredded chicken to the pot of veggies, stir and let the mixture cook together. For a bit of extra flavor, pour the oil collected in the pan from the chicken into the pot. It adds some more fat and juice to the dish, which is on the light side.

Last, but not least, assemble the fajita. Some avocado yogurt sauce, followed by shredded cabbage, then by the veggie and chicken mix and topped with cheese.

That’s the third great thing about Mexican night. It’s assemble your own meal. It’s like those R.L Stine Choose Your Own Adventure Goosebumps books!

Except, you know, you won’t meet a mad scientist or a flesh-eating zombie if you make the wrong turn.

Ginger Garlic Stir Fry – He cooks for me

Posted on July 23, 2013 by jacky grace

Tonight’s post is a very special one.

Tonight, I am not cooking.

We are not ordering take out.

And no, we are not going out to eat.

Tonight, he cooks for me.

Here he is – the man and his wok.

I’m going to admit something. This is just between us.

I’m kind of scared of the wok. I don’t know why I have this irrational fear, but I hate the wok. I love the food it makes, but I haven’t yet worked up the courage to cook with it.

So when we want to make asian dishes, he’s in charge.

I take care of the prep work though.

The prep is the key. You have to have everything chopped and ready to go because the wok cooks things really quickly.

We’re doing broccoli, snow peas and cabbage but you can do any mix of vegetables. I blanched the broccoli quickly when I got home and let it hang out until he was ready to go.

Other ingredients you need in addition to your veggies:

chopped garlic
chopped ginger
soy sauce
vegetable oil
rice wine vinegar
toasted sesame oil

Drizzle some vegetable oil into the wok. Add in the broccoli. The broccoli takes longest to cook, so it goes in first.

Next add your ginger and garlic. The broccoli acts like a barrier so the ginger and garlic don’t burn.

Toss in the snap peas.

Drizzle in some rice wine vinegar, soy sauce and toasted sesame oil and stir. Add the cabbage and stir some more.

That’s the other key to cooking in the wok- keep things moving. It gets really hot, so food cooks quickly, which means it can burn quickly.

When the veggies are cooked but still have some crunch to them, remove from the heat. Dish up bowls of rice or egg noodles and top with the vegetable mixture.

Add a sprinkle of sesame seeds and you have a dish to rival the takeout place.

The only downside?

House rules say the one who cooks doesn’t do the dishes.

Which means there’s a wok with my name on it.

Phooey.

Two Ingredient Black Bean Soup

Posted on July 22, 2013 by jacky grace

Hello City!

Hello city kitchen!

A week away at the beach, relaxing in the sun and enjoying dinners out every night was a wonderful break from the every day drudgery of alarm clocks and subways and desk jobs. But it’s always good to be back home.

As crazy as the city gets (and as bad as it can smell in the summer) it’s home and I love it dearly.

We got back pretty late last night so I only got the essentials at the store – milk, half and half and orange juice – so we could have breakfast.

I was excited to get back to cooking, but the first day back at the office is always brutal. So by the time I got home, I really had no energy for dinner.

And if you’re vacations are like ours, you come home with your wallet and your waistline a little bit angry with you.

Ice cream every night, boardwalk fries and heaping plates of fish tacos had done a number on my tummy.

So tonight would be light. And cheap. And super easy.

So easy that I’m embarrassed to post this as my first post in a week.

I’m kind f inclined to not even call it a recipe.

For this dish you will need two things:

Yup. A jar of salsa and a can of black beans.

Think about black bean soup. It’s got beans, obviously, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic and some spices. Now read the ingredients on the jar of salsa. Yup. Same thing.

If you’re in a bind, why not?

Dump the jar of salsa and the can of rinsed and drained black beans into a pot.

Add 1 salsa jar of water to the pot (precise measurements, no?) You could use chicken or vegetable broth too, but the salsa has so much flavor that I usually stick with water.

Stir and let simmer over medium heat for a few minutes until warmed through.

Top with some taco cheese, tortilla chips and sour cream. Add a side salad dressed with a squeeze of lime to keep the Mexican flavors and you , and you have dinner on the table in ten minutes and for like seven bucks.

Your tummy and your wallet will thank you.

Prosciutto, Pea, Ricotta Pasta Salad

Posted on July 11, 2013 by jacky grace

So the boyfriend is not coming home for dinner and we leave for vacation tomorrow.

That means two things.

1. I can make something he doesn’t like.

2. I don’t want to buy any groceries since we’re going away for a week.

This means a rummage in the fridge. I cam up with some ricotta cheese and some prosciutto left over from sub night.

The cabinets are always stocked with pasta.

And I make it a point to always have some kind of frozen vegetable in the freezer.

In this case, it’s peas. He hates peas, so that covers point 1.

I don’t know how anyone can eat peas. They’re so fresh and bright and springy. They burst open in your mouth and release their yummy flavor with every bite.

Oh well. I like them, so I’m making them.

This is a super simple dish that you can easily make ahead and toss in the fridge. It’s a good one to make in a huge batch for a party or to leave in the fridge to be portioned out for lunches during the week.

Like I said, I had everything on hand. So you can adjust this to what you have. Frozen broccoli would be really good, too. And if you want to make it vegetarian, you can easily leave off the prosciutto. I like the saltiness it adds, so maybe add a sprinkle of parmesan if you eliminate the prosciutto to give it back that salty bite.

This is an almost no cooking dinner.

Defrost the peas according to the instructions on the package.

Look at those bright green emeralds! I don’t understand how anyone could not want to eat them up.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil.

I’m using these little mini farfalline, or bowtie pasta. Farfallina means little butterfly in Italian. (Farfalla is butterfly. the ina makes the word mean little). The pasta does kind of look like little butterflies.

Cook your pasta according to the directions on the box. You can use any shape you like. I prefer something with some shape to it. I don’t like angel hair or spaghetti for this. I like that the farfalline is about the same size as the peas. It makes it easy to eat.

As the pasta cook, rip up some prosciutto and drop it in a dry skillet. Cook over medium until it crisps up.

When the pasta’s done, drain it and toss it in a bowl with the peas.

Add a scoop of ricotta and stir.

Top with the crispy prosciutto.

This is a great bowl to curl up on the couch with. Especially while watching Say Yes to the Dress!

Oh my god. What is she thinking? That dress is atrocious.

It’s a no cooking night

Posted on July 10, 2013 by jacky grace

We all have days where we come home and just want to be able to whip something up quickly and with minimal effort. Maybe just boiling some water for pasta or light sauteing veggies to throw over leftover rice.

Light amount of cooking required kind of dishes.

Then, there are those nights when the last thing you want to do is cook. Boiling water, preheating the oven, heck even microwaving something is just too much.

But don’t you go reaching for those takeout menus and cell phone!

No siree.

Not wanting to cook doesn’t mean you can’t make dinner.

And anyway, a recent article in Chatelaine says that cooking at home makes you happy! For real, check it out. http://www.chatelaine.com/health/the-happiness-plan/how-cooking-at-home-makes-you-happier/

So I’m not crazy when I say the kitchen is my happy place.

So what to do though when you don’t actually want to cook but want to make something for dinner? Well, you can reach for the box of cereal – don’t lie! you’ve all done it!- or you can take a page from Jeff Mauro The Sandwich King’s book and have a sandwich night!

Or, more specifically, a sub night.

I’m Italian, so I grew up with salami sandwiches in my lunchbox. Heck, sometimes there was even last night’s salami bread in my lunch box.

And my boyfriend, after many a salami sandwich at my parents’ house, is now an Italian cold cut lover too.

So why not have a make your own sub night?

It’s quick, it’s easy, it lets everyone make their dinner their own way, and it means making a meal without turning on a single appliance.

And there’s pretty much no clean up.

And, it’s kind of a no-brainer.

You’ll just need some good bread- we used a loaf of Calandra’s Italian bread (duh)- cold cuts of your choice – salami, provolone, pepperoni and pr0sciutto for us – and any extra topping you want – mustard, mayo, oil, vinegar, tomato, lettuce.

For a well balanced sub, I suggest some kind of cheese, paired with at least two meats with different textures or flavor profiles. Think turkey paired with capicola or, like we did, the sharp provolone against the spicy salami, salty prosciutto and fatty salami. Roast beef and spicy monterey jack cheese.

The sky really is the limit here.

So, bread, cold cuts, toppings.

Set up an assembly line.

Slice your bread.

Lay out the cold cuts so everyone can see everything there is.

Slice up some juicy Jersey tomatoes. I think tomatoes are necessary on an Italian sub. They cut through all the rich, fatty flavors of the meats and give the sandwich some brightness. I also think you need some crunch factor in the form of lettuce. Romaine or iceberg are always good choices. We used shredded cabbage because we had a bag on hand.

Then, build your sandwich. I went cabbage first, then pepperoni, then provolone, then salami and prosciutto, then some tomato. I finished with a drizzle of balsamic.

He went tomato first, provolone, then salami, pepperoni, prosciutto and cabbage. He drizzled his with some olive oil and balsamic. I think he went mustard and mayo too.

Like I said, this is a great dinner because everyone can have it their way.

Rip open a bag of chips and enjoy.

Pepperoni and String Beans

Posted on July 9, 2013 by jacky grace

You read that title, scratched your head, wrinkled your nose and said what?

No, this is not a joke.

This is pepperoni and string beans.

You’ve never heard of it?

I don’t think anyone outside of my dad’s family has really. It’s not an Italian dish. It’s not… well, I don’t think it’s any kind of dish.

Our guess is that my grandma had six hungry kids on her hands and only pepperoni, string beans and some tomato paste in the cabinets and she just shrugged and said, eh, why not?

Did I mention my grandma had six kids, no dishwasher and no driver’s license?

So if the kids were hungry and grandpa wasn’t home, whatever was in the house would have to become dinner. Somehow.

I’m guessing that’s how this concoction came into being.

My mom always makes this down the shore. I’ve never made it for my boyfriend before, not because I think that he’ll think it’s weird, but because I’ve never had it anywhere but down at our shore house.

Isn’t that weird?

There’s certain foods that have such a strong association with certain places that I just can’t imagine eating them anywhere else.

So while we were away with my parents over the weekend, mom decided to make it.

Our kitchen down the shore is equally as itty bitty, just not so city.

So this post comes to you from my mom in her itty bitty but not so city kitchen.

For this dish you will need can of tomato paste, canned string beans, pepperoni (sliced).

You can add as many cans of green beans and as much pepperoni as you need to feed your troop.

The only key here is that the tomato paste be added with water in a 3 parts water to 1 part tomato paste ratio.

Fool proof method? 3 cans of water (using the tomato paste can) per one can of tomato paste.

Ready? Dump everything in a pot.

Cover with a lid and cook over medium. Stir it every once in a while.

It’s the perfect thing to throw together and let hang on the stove while you hang on the beach. Whenever someone goes back to the house for a snack or a potty break, just ask them to give the pot a stir.

The longer it simmers, the spicier the tomato broth gets as the pepperoni seeps into it.

The next day it’s even spicier.

Spoon out into bowls and have some crusty bread ready.

A bowl of this always makes me think of summer at the beach.

What dishes have that kind of association with a place for you?

I’d love to hear them!

Your house stinks! Or, Aglio e Olio and Old Bay Shrimp

Posted on July 8, 2013 by jacky grace

This is very unlike me, but last night I was too pooped to post dinner!

I’m reading Tigers in Red Weather right now, and there’s a scene where the women are sitting on their porch in their silk slips because it’s too hot to wear anything else. They’re fanning themselves and drinking gin out of jelly jars.

It was that kind of hot.

Lazy beach days like that require a super simple, no thinking required dinner.

For that, there is spaghetti with aglio e olio.

In Italian, that translates to garlic and oil, and that’s, quite simply, all the dish is.

Pour some olive oil in a pan, add in the garlic and heat until the garlic just starts to brown.

Meanwhile, boil some water and cook up some spaghetti.

Dish up the spaghetti and pour the aglio e olio over the pasta.

Add a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

This is a simple dish made from pantry staples that every cook should have in their back pocket.

I always have those ingredients on hand, so should there be last minute guests, or a heat induced malaise that makes a trip to the store sound like torture, dinner is still makeable.

Mom also whipped up some shrimp to go with the pasta.

For four people, she used two pounds of frozen shrimp, tails and shells on.

Toss the frozen shrimp in a big frying pan, douse with Old Bay seasoning and cook over medium until the shrimp’s cooked through.

Old Bay is another Delaware and Maryland shore thing. It’s a spice blend with red and black pepper, paprika and some other things, and it makes it’s way into pretty much everything down here – the crabs were cooked in it the other night, you can pick up Old Bay potato chips at the store…

If you’ve never had it, give it a try. You can bring a taste of the Eastern shore to your kitchen.

So, mom dished up heaping bowls of garlic spaghetti with garlic bread on the side and plopped a big bowl of old bay shrimp in the middle of the table for us to go at.

And go at it we did.

After dinner, our neighbor’s six-year old son came over with his mom to pick up glow stick bracelets from my mom because, yea, my mom has a bag full of army men, pez, glowsticks- pretty much any toy you could wants as a kid at the beach.

He took one step into our house, looked at his mom and said “Mama, it stinks in here!”

We couldn’t help but laugh.

He was right. It did stink in here.

But it was so good. And worth the stink.

**PS, aglio e olio is a great sauce to whip up in a pinch, but only if everyone is eating it and if you are not, I repeat NOT going to need to talk to anyone for the rest of the night.

Cracking Crabs in Lower Slower Delaware

Posted on July 6, 2013 by jacky grace

That’s what the locals affectionately call the beach area of Delaware- lower slower.

It’s th elower portion of the state and, well, the pace is a little slower down here.

You mosy up to the beach and hang out in the sand all day. Maybe pop a beer when the lifeguards leave at 5 and then stay up until the sun starts to dip below the horizon and the breeze has you reaching for your sweatshirt.

You gather up the chairs and sand toys and head back to the house.

But you’re not going to shower off the salt water, yet.

And you’re not going to start cooking.

Tonight is crab night.

Anyone from the Maryland or Delaware region knows what I mean. For those of you who did not spend your summers on the Delmarva peninsula, let me explain.

You have probably had crabs in some forms – probably crab cakes, or crab imperial topping your broiled fish. But that’s not the true experience of crabs.

Oh no.

You need to get a couple dozen, steamed in spicy old bay, sit down in your bathing suit (I highly recommend showering post crabs) and go to town with a crab cracker.

There’s a technique to cracking crabs. Everyone has their own style. But the basics are the same. Break off the legs. You’re going to go at the claws separately. On the body, on the bottom, there’s a little, almost latch looking bit. Pull that tab and crack the shell of the crab open. Crack it in half. All the white meat is wonderful, yummy lump crab meat. Don’t eat the green stuff! Use the crackers to break into the claws.

This is the perfect lower slower food. You sit down with a roll of paper towels, a big glass of lemonade or beer and ten three hours later, all that’s left are some shells and an empty bowl.

Oh and all the bits of crab shell you flung around the kitchen cracking the claws.

Remember when I said to stay in your bathing suit?

You’re welcome!

Itty Bitty City Kitchen

tiny kitchen, BIG CULINARY ASPIRATIONS

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