Ina's cookbooks are famous for their beautiful photos, and I really couldn't resist making this dish, which comes from her new cookbook.
The steps are these:
Roast artichoke hearts in a single layer on a sheet pan at 350 degrees for 20 min. Ina calls for frozen, but I couldn't find them and used canned instead. They tasted just fine.
Chop some raw red onion and roasted red peppers and put in a bowl with some capers. Make the dressing by blending the following in a food processor (or, if you're me, a blender):
- White wine vinegar
- Lemon juice
- Chopped shallot
- Chopped basil
- Olive oil
This was easily the hit of the party. I served it as part of an antipasto platter with mozzarella balls, kalamata olives, pine nuts, and sun-dried tomatoes.
The main course was fillets of sole over a bed of tuscan beans and veggies.
The sole was easiest, so let's talk about that one first. I was able to pick up some sole fillets at the Whole Foods in River North on my long lunch walk yesterday. You just bread them, fry in butter, and put the in the oven to warm while you finish the rest of them. They're tiny little suckers, so some of them got stuck to my pan. But I took a guest's advice and deglazed the pan with some white wine and butter, so we had a nice little sauce to top everything off.
The tuscan beans were a little more complicated; the night before I chopped up 4 cups fennel and 2 cups carrots. (You only use the bulb of the fennel; the fronds, core, and stalks go to bunny.) The night before, I also soaked the cannellini beans. This bean-soaking experience went much more positively than my pre-marriage attempt, which resulted in some shriveled, hard, horrible bean-like things.
An hour before you eat, boil the beans for 45 min. in twice as much water as you have beans. After about 30 min., begin cooking the veggies by sauteing the fennel and carrots in some oil, then add minced garlic, chopped sage, and chopped rosemary. Toss in the beans and 1 cup stock (chicken or veggie) and heat through.
This was pretty good stuff, and I really love beans. Soaking them like this makes me think it would be possible to eat them much more frequently and in a much more healthy way (i.e., a lot less salt). I have realized that I've been on a major legume kick recently, what with all the chickpea curry, black lentil stew, and tuscan beans. And tonight I'm making black-eyed pea salad. Protein replacement, anyone?
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