Italian - - Page 13

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? Rachael Ray vs. Giada De Laurentiis

It’s come to our attention here at ES that despite all these food blogs, there are only so many things a person can actually cook. I mean, it takes a lot of hard work to come up with an original, tasty combination of ingredients, and even when you do, chances are someone’s already thought of it before anyway. Just ask Jessica Seinfeld. So what’s a snarky food blogger to do? Why, judge others of course. On that note we introduce our newest feature: Who Cooked It Better?

Inspired by Us Weekly’s in-depth examination of celebrity costumery, Who Wore It Best? we’ll be browsing the food world each week to bring you a head-to-head match-up in which you, the readers, get to decide Who Cooked It Better?

It’s only fitting that our first culinary clash is a fishfight between the Food Network’s two sultriest chefs. Anyone can wrap a simple broiled scallop in bacon and make it taste pretty great, but not everyone can produce the beautiful succulence that is emitted by Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentiis on a daily basis.

Pictured in the left-hand corner is the entry from our first cheftestant, the New York-born, former Macy’s candy counter clerk and aspiring queen of all media, Rachael Ray. Thankfully, RayRay resisted the urge to make an entreetizer or stoup this time and went semi-classic with her scallops, which are marinated in Teriyaki sauce, wrapped in thickly-sliced bacon and served on a tantalizing toothpick. Rachael gets creativity points for adding a slice of water chestnut and piece of pickled ginger to each scallop. Full recipe here.

In the right corner is our challenger, Rome-born, Hollywood-raised brand new baby mama Giada De Laurentiis. Giada went for a refreshing take here, blending up a tomato-basil-olive oil rub for her scallops, and kicking it up a notch by wrapping them in prosciutto. These scrumptious shellfish look pretty gushingly gourmet on their bed of fresh arugula, although perhaps a little hard to handle. Full recipe here.

So, dear readers, your thoughts please…
[Poll id=”7″]

by BS

How Wheat It Isn’t

Living in New York, I could care less about skyrocketing gas prices – I can count the number of times I’ve driven a car on on my fingers. And to be honest, I’m about ready for this city’s real estate bubble to burst already (got half a mil? you can be the proud owner of a tiny apartment in the middle of a crappy neighborhood!) But this developing wheat crisis is threatening to hit me where it hurts – in the stomach.

That’s right, the pillars of the New York City food chain are about to topple, because rumor has it pizza is heading up to $3 a slice! But that’s not all – next up: bagels for more than a dollar a pop. And no, that doesn’t include cream cheese.

As a rough estimate, I’d say I eat a bagel for breakfast about 17 days a month, and grab a slice of pizza for lunch or dinner maybe 10 times a month. That means the monthly expenses associated with being a New York City bottom feeder just jumped by about $15. Let’s not even think about pizza bagels, which I can only assume are now going for the price of white truffles.

The reason? Bad weather around the globe has hit wheat crops hard, sending prices through the roof. So let’s start praying for some sunshine, people, because if this starts screwing with wheat thins in any way, I am just going to explode.

in Uncategorized 1 comments

by BS

Cooking with Coolio

If you thought that Dangerous Minds song was the pinnacle of Coolio’s career, well you were wrong, wrong, wrong, because the flamboyant 90’s rapper “is ’bout to teach yo’ ass how to cook.”Yes, you read that correctly. In a definitively amazing attempt to heighten his post-Gangtas Paradise career to Flava Flavian proportions, Coolio now has an online cooking show, complete with video hos and and a creepy sidekick. Take if from me, learning to love “Cookin with Coolio” is as easy as 1-2-3-4.

In episode one, Coolio doesn’t actually cook anything, but he does prepare a beautiful caprese salad that is allegedly “better than ‘yo momma’s titties.” I don’t know about all that, but you’ve got to admit, it does look pretty delicious.

Other words of wisdom from Chef Coolio:

– This dish will come in handy if your girlfriend is “one of those salad eating bitches.”

– Go light on the Extra Virgin, because “an oily salad ain’t shit.”

– Also, try to finish off your caprese with a healthy dusting of what may or may not be marijuana, and it helps if you end most sentences by inexplicably yelling “Shaka Zulu.”

Rachael Ray he is not. He is, however, one million times more entertaining than Rachael Ray. And – if you send in the best video response to Coolio’s lesson, you can win an autographed bell pepper!

in Celebs / Cheese / Veggie 4 comments

by BS

ES Classic: Eggplant Rollatini

Not that I’ve run out of ideas or anything, but this weekend I decided to revisit a recipe from the ghost of Endless Simmer past. Actually, it was the very first post in ES history, published EIGHT FULL MONTHS AGO! Can you believe it?

Here’s that first post, a brief write-up of my adventures with Eggplant Rollatini.

How embarrassing! I can’t believe I’m even linking to that post. Look at that awful photo choice! The misspellings! The run-on sentence recipe! It’s worse than looking at my 8th grade yearbook.

Well I made this dish again, with some new variations. But since I wasn’t cooking for my healthy, responsible parents this time, you can count on additions of carbs, cheese and plenty of oil.

After the jump, recipe for Eggplant Rollatini 2.0.

in Cheese / Recipe / Veggie 2 comments

by gansie

Sunday Dinner, Part Two

I’m proud to report that I made some progress in “not cheating” for Sunday night dinner. Although I didn’t whip up something intense, I actually did so some prep work, as opposed to the shame that was last week.

I obviously spent the day sleeping in, watching football (Eli continues on?!?!) and this terrible commercial 700 times (although for some reason, 80 loves it,) reading a good amount of the Wash Post* (that’s me to the right) and, of course, eating.

*Okay, let me rant for a second. I hate/do not believe when people say they read the whole paper every morning. That’s a lie. The paper is HUGE. It’s absolutely impossible to read the entire paper every morning. You’d have to start reading the second it was delivered (4-5 am? and shoot-off rant, you know you’re in trouble when you get home from a night partying and the paper is already delivered, but that can be a rant for another day) to be done reading it by the time you had to go to work. Sure, some people are animals and get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and drink coffee and read the paper and save the world, but I’m sooo not one of them. And anyway, they’re lying. 80 and I spent three hours tag-teaming the paper and we still couldn’t get through the whole thing. Regardless.

So for dinner, 80 and I flirted with the idea of ordering from Goodys, one of those all encompassing delivery places. They serve everything from fried rice to buffalo wings to burritos to chicken parm subs. And, during the end/beginning of the year, they also give a complimentary calendar/menu (see left) along with the food. The calendar kicks ass, it features the Chinese Zodiac (or peacocks or pandas) as well as their extensive menu, ensuring easy ordering all year long. But, we decided instead to find something in the kitchen because god-forbid one of us has to actually leave the apartment and go downstairs to get the food. Leaving the couch was hard enough.

Continue reading for the startling conclusion to Sunday night eating.

in Cheese / Sandwich 12 comments

by 80 Proof

A Better Butter Sauce

You know how nutritionists say that home cooking is healthier since it allows you to control your portions?

Well, what if you have no self-control, what happens then? I’ll tell you what, you end up making pasta sauces made with butter, parmesan cheese, and more butter. Portion control my ass.

Chef Gansie this past weekend made the long trek across DC to Eastern Market do some ‘research’ (check out her article in the Onion next week!). Over there at the Market, there is a wonderful Italian food and Pasta station with all the varieties you could think of. When I lived over on the Hill I would drool over the 12 kinds of tortellini, admire the colorful ravioli, and then go home and order Al’s Pizza.

But this time, my wish came true as Gansie returned with some Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Ravioli. These fresh-made pasta squares also contained ricotta, romano, sage, nutmeg, and tumeric. Needless to say, these aren’t your mama’s ravioli. But at a cost of 6.75 for six pieces, your mom might have to help pay for them.

in Uncategorized 6 comments

by BS

Video Hott Links: Rapping Pizza Polling Higher Than Ron Paul

Video Hott Links is our semi-irregular high-tech roundup of the tastiest content on the web. In translation, these videos kinda-sorta-not really have to do with food.

[youtube X9DrjybyhLA]

After the jump, some crazy college kids REALLY like spaghetti and meatballs, and the Amateur Gourmet gets a latte lesson.

in Drinks 2 comments