Fearless Kitchen

Recipe: Tomato Sauce with Chicken Sausage

Sometimes you just crave familiar old comfort foods, you know?  The foods that you ate growing up, that bring back happy memories of love and contentment.  Of course, those foods are different for different people.  For some people meatloaf is comforting.  (For me it's horrifying, but that's just me.)  Lately I've been craving the tomato sauce my grandmother used to make.  It was the most beautiful thing in the whole world.  The smell filled the whole house when she made it, and just the slightest taste would fill me with this amazing sense of well-being that I can't even properly put into words.  (Why yes, we do take food seriously in my family, why do you ask?)  All of my happiest childhood memories have the smell of my grandmother's sauce indelibly linked to them, to such an extent that the first time I set foot in Old Yankee Stadium I was convinced that I could smell my grandmother's sauce bubbling away in the next room.  (My grandmother's sauce did not smell like the Bronx.  We just watched a lot of baseball in her living room, especially during the late 1970s.) 

Anyway, I do know how to make my grandmother's sauce, although I can't share it here at her request.  It will never be quite the same.  I live 317 miles away from her beautiful kitchen and the brands I can get (or, in some cases, choose) are not the same ones she used.  I can't even find the same kind of pepperoni she used.  I don't use veal, and she did.  Right now, though, there's a bigger barrier to my re-creating my grandmother's sauce and that's pork.  I can't eat it.  She used a LOT of it.  Still, the craving for the sauce was really becoming all-consuming, so I decided to try an experiment.  Could I make a sauce that contained some meat that would satisfy that craving, at least a little, without causing myself a whole wide world of hurt? 

This is what I came up with.  It isn't the same, not by a long shot.  It is still good, though, and it did make that desperate and impossible craving recede.  I served it with store-bought ravioli, because I am too lazy to make my own lately.  I do want to caution you against something here: good sauce, especially the kind with meat, is something that cannot be rushed.  Do not try to cut corners.  Save this for a day when you're going to be hanging around the house anyway, like when your kid has the sniffles or you're snowed in and wouldn't want to go anywhere anyway. 

Since I first drafted this post, I realized that this may fit the requirements for the Family Recipes blogging event, which is hosted jointly by Grumpy's Honeybunch, Lynda of Lynda's Recipe Box, and Laura of The Spiced Life.  I may have submitted something similar in the past, in which case I apologize, but I wasn't sure and figured it couldn't hurt.  Thanks to all three for hosting! 

Also, if you decide to make this with pork sausage, you can probably omit a lot of the olive oil.  The onions in my grandmother's kitchen were cooked in the rendered fat from the various forms of pork that first had to be browned.  I did try that here, but chicken sausage yields up a lot less fat than pork.  At least mine did. 

Tomato Sauce with Chicken Sausage (makes enough to top 4 portions of pasta unless you REALLY like sauce; approx. $1.67/serving)

1 28-oz can diced tomatoes (I like Muir Glen; if you use a different brand your CPS will decrease)

1 onion, minced

8 cloves garlic, crushed

1 pinch kosher salt

1 tablespoon tomato paste

3 tablespoons dried basil

1 tablespoon dried oregano

2 bay leaves

1 - 2 tablespoons olive oil

1 hot Italian chicken sausage, casings removed

Equipment:

• Large saucepan

1. Break up the chicken sausage and put it in the saucepan. 
2. Cook over medium or medium-low heat until browned.  Evacuate the meat and set aside; leave any rendered fat in the pan.
3. Turn off the heat (please) and add 1 - 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan, depending on how much fat you managed to extract from the sausage.  Heat the oil over medium-low heat.
4. Add the onion and cook gently until the onion is softened. 
5. Add the salt, garlic, basil, oregano and bay leaves.  Cook 1 minute or so, until fragrant.
6. Add the tomatoes (in their juice) and the tomato paste.  Bring to a boil.
7. Reduce heat, cover and simmer gently until the liquid is much reduced and the tomatoes are beginning to fall apart.  If you were to take a bit of bread and dip it into the sauce by way of a taste test, it would taste like the flavors were just beginning to come together. 
8. Add the browned sausage.  Cook another 5 - 10 minutes. 
9. Ladle the sausage over some cooked pasta of your choice and serve. 

Recipe: Stuffed Shells

I've been sitting here for a good ten minutes trying to think of something to say about stuffed shells and I haven't come up with a thing.  They've never been a favorite, but they've never been something I actively disliked either.  They were always just kind of ... there, this kind of ubiquitous part of every Italian-American buffet party table.  Of course, they're ubiquitous for a reason.  They're very popular.  Lots and lots of people like them.  When we decided to host a tree-decorating party for our families this past Christmas, I tried to think of dishes that could be eaten standing up without making a mess, and stuffed shells came to mind. 

My grandmother would have made this with a meat-based sauce.  She made everything with a meat-based sauce, because if she had used anything other than her classic sauce there would have been rioting and mutiny.  Unfortunately, the meat in her meat-based sauce was mostly pork and pork product, which I can't consume at the moment.  I decided to develop a vegetarian sauce instead of trying to synthesize the same flavors my grandmother produced so perfectly with the wrong ingredients.  Using a vegetarian sauce would make it more likely that my sister would eat it as well.  I used the same herbs that I used in the sauce in the stuffing to kind of tie the flavors together. 

Stuffed Shells (serves 8; approx. $2.09/serving)

2 cups Vegetarian Tomato Sauce

5 ounces shredded mozzarella, divided

2 ounces grated peccorino

3 tablespoons dried basil

32 ounces part-skim ricotta cheese

1 1/2 boxes jumbo shells, cooked according to package instructions and drained

Equipment:

• Roasting pan
• Bowl

1. Preheat your oven to 375.
2. Combine the ricotta, peccorino, 1 ounce of the mozzarella and basil in the bowl.  Mix very well. 
3. Using a small spoon or your hands, carefully stuff the cooked pasta shells with the cheese mixture.  The shells should roll shut fairly easily once stuffed. 
4. Lay the shells in the roasting pan in a single layer. 
5. Drizzle the sauce over the shells. 
6. Sprinkle the remaining mozzarella over the top of the sauce and shells.  If you've a mind to, you can sprinkle a little peccorino over the top as well. 
7. Bake until the cheese on top is fully melted and beginning to brown.  I think this took about 20 minutes for me. 
8. Serve.  This dish can be made ahead of time and easily reheated, which is probably why it appears so frequently at parties.  We reheated the leftovers again for dinner a few nights later with no noticeable diminution of quality, so this is something you can use again and again. 

Recipe: Calzone

Recipe Source (dough): Shapter, Jennie.  Bread Machine.  Anness Publishing, London, 2002 p. 112

When we did the planning for our family tree decorating party this past Christmas, the plan was for all of the food to be dishes you could eat while standing and mingling.  You know, finger food.  That way there would be no problem decorating the tree and eating at the same time.  That's not how it worked out, but that was the intention.  I thought and thought about something that I could serve that would fit that ideal, and the thought of the calzones popped into my head.  When I was a kid I remember learning that calzones are "kind of like a pizza, except folded in half."  That's kind of oversimplifying it, but it worked well enough for me at the time. 

I used a dough recipe from one of our default bread-baking books, but the filling was original.  I wanted to include sausage.  Ordinarily I'd use pork sausage, but pork is really on my no list right now so I used hot Italian chicken sausage instead.  Otherwise, I used just some cheese and some sauce.  The calzones were a pretty big hit with our guests, and the leftovers kept quite well in the refrigerator for several days.  (They might have lasted longer, but we ate them.)  Minette the Cat showed some curiosity about the calzones, but did not actually eat any. 

Calzones (makes 13; approx. $0.74/ea.)

Generous 1/2 cup warm water

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

3/4 can (14 oz can) prepared pizza sauce (I prefer Muir Glen brand, but it's up to you)

1 2/3 hot Italian chicken sausage, casings removed

5 ounces shredded mozzarella

2 ounces grated peccorino

Equipment:

• Stand mixer
• Skillet
• Baking sheets
• Rolling pin

1. Combine the yeast, sugar and water.  Set aside until frothy.
2. Mix the flour and salt in the bowl of the stand mixer.
3. Add the yeast mixture and the olive oil.  Knead on very low speed 3 - 4 minutes, then on very slightly higher speed 3 minutes.
4. Cover and set aside until doubled in bulk, at least 1 hour. 
5. When the dough is risen, preheat your oven to 425. 
6. Break up the sausage and brown it in the skillet.  Set aside.
7. Break off pieces of dough and roll them into thin, flat discs.  I got 13 discs out of mine. 
8. Create an assembly line.  Take a disc.  Spoon about a spoonful of sauce into the middle, then add a small amount of sausage, some mozzarella, and the scantest pinch of peccorino.  Fold the edges of the disc shut and crimp to seal.  Place seam-side down on the baking sheet and proceed to the next one.
9. When you've used all of your dough, bake the calzones for 15 - 20 minutes. 
10. Serve warm or at room temperature, although they're good cold too. 

Recipe: Vegetarian Tomato Sauce

When we decided we were going to host both sides of our family for a tree-decorating party this Christmas, we knew that we needed to feed people.  My mother had suggested just getting take-out or some such thing, but I don't think she quite understands the dearth of possibilities in that vein here in Braintree.  I wanted to make things that people could eat standing up, taking a break from the task of decorating the tree.  That is what I made, but that's not what happened.  I put out the tiny little cocktail party-type plates, and people filled them and brought them back to the table and sat and ate like it was a formal meal.  I'm not complaining, but really, I would have put out more normal plates! 

Anyway, one of the dishes I wanted to make was Stuffed Shells.  They're something my whole family would enjoy, and while you do need a fork to eat them you don't need to be sitting down.  The thing is, I needed a tomato sauce to go with them.  I wanted to make my family's traditional sauce, but that contains enough pork to comprise a whole pig and would probably kill me at this point.  That tends to put a damper on things!  So I decided to make a vegetarian tomato sauce.  It's not quite the same, but it's still tasty.  This is that sauce.  It made enough to freeze some for those nights when I'm not up to cooking as well. 

Vegetarian Tomato Sauce (makes approx. 8 cups, approx. $1.73/cup)

2 onions, chopped

1 head garlic, peeled and crushed

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons dried basil

2 tablespoons dried oregano

2 bay leaves

1 pinch kosher salt

3 28-oz cans ground peeled tomatoes (I prefer Muir Glen brand)

1 can tomato paste

2 tablespoons (approx.) fresh basil, chiffonade

Equipment:

• Large saucepan
• Time.

1. Heat the oil in the saucepan.
2. Add the onions and garlic.  Cook gently until just beginning to soften. 
3. Add the dried herbs, bay leaves and kosher salt.  Continue to cook until the onions are quite soft.  It is important to keep the heat low and not rush the process!
4. Add the canned tomatoes (with their juices!) and the tomato paste.  Bring to a gentle boil.
5. Reduce heat and simmer slowly until the flavors are well blended and the sauce has lost some of its watery texture.  I wish I could be more specific.  With my grandmother's meat-based sauce it took hours and hours, filling the house with the most amazing aroma.  I want to say that this vegetarian version only took me an hour and a half or two hours, but I'm not positive.  You really have to do this by taste and smell. 
6. Serve, or freeze and use when ready. 

Recipe: Cannellini Beans with Sage

Recipe Source: Jenkins, Sara and Mindy Fox.  Olives & Oranges.  Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2008 p. 42

I made this dish for a recent Sunday dinner.  Two things really appealed to me about this dish.  First, it was cheap.  Note the cost per serving.  Good food doesn't have to cost a fortune.  Second, it involved sage.  As I know I've already mentioned recently, I love sage.  I'll admit that I'd been planning to make this for quite some time, but I kept forgetting to soak the beans ahead of time.  I know that a pressure cooker would go a long way toward eliminating that problem for me, but I don't have a pressure cooker and I'm pretty distrustful of them, so I will just deal with soaking overnight. 

This recipe has four ingredients, so there really wasn't much to change.  While it is a recipe that has to be started well ahead of time, it is not a time consuming recipe.  Once you put it on to cook, you can pretty much forget that you've got it, as long as you remember to check the liquid level from time to time.  I did find that the beans took longer to cook than the recipe suggested and that I needed to add liquid more than once to keep them from burning. 

Cannellini Beans with Sage (serves 6; approx. $0.24/serving)

16 ounces dried cannellini beans

1 head garlic, peeled

3 sprigs sage

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Equipment:

• Large bowl
• Large saucepan
• Time.  Lots of time.

1. The night before you plan to eat this, combine the beans, sage and garlic with enough water to cover generously.  Put somewhere that the cat can't get into it. 
2. A couple of hours before you plan to serve, pour the contents into a large saucepan over medium-low heat.  Bring to a simmer.
3. Cook at a bare simmer, until the beans are tender.  This took me a while.  It's okay to add some more water to the pot if you need to; this did not affect the flavor of my finished dish at all. 
4. When the beans are tender, sprinkle with kosher salt and serve. 

Recipe: Fresh Fig Tart

Recipe Source: Orsini, Fr. Giuseppe.  Italian Baking Secrets.  St. Martin's Press, New York, 2007 p. 140

I know I've mentioned this tart before, possibly in the Chestnut Tart post.  I really wanted to make it in the fall, but I was unable to find fresh figs locally.  At any rate, while I was making the fig jam, my husband happened to be talking to a friend of ours and it turns out that she really, really likes figs.  Who knew?  Anyway, I filed that information away in my mental storage system (which looks like a tornado hit it, trust me) and moved on.  Well, one week I knew that there was a possibility of entertaining this friend and her husband.  While I was doing the food shopping, I noticed fresh figs.  They were even a reasonable price!  I bought them up, brought them home and decided I was going to make the tart. 

Unfortunately I was less than enthusiastic about the way it turned out.  The thing is, the only change that I made (besides using Fearless Sweet Shortcrust Pastry) was to use almond extract in place of vanilla.  That shouldn't have made the custard set up so quickly.  I think that my objection is only to the visual appearance of the tart, but since it didn't turn out the way I intended I was never going to be happy with it anyway.  My guests were quite pleased with it, or at least they said they were, and my husband also enjoyed it. 

Fig Tart (serves 8; approx. cost per serving $0.90/serving)

1 recipe Fearless Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon almond extract

7 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 egg

1 egg yolk

12 fresh figs, washed and roughly chopped

Equipment: 

• Aluminum foil
• Pie weights (I use dried beans.)
• Saucepan
• Bowl
• Tart pan with removable bottom

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Press the pastry into the tart pan, making sure to get it up the sides nicely. 
3. Cover the crust with foil and fill with the pie weights.  Bake blind 30 minutes or until done. 
4. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
5. Bring the milk, honey and almond extract to a boil in the saucepan.  Immediately reduce heat to a simmer and simmer 5 minutes.
6. Let cool 10 minutes.  Whisk in the sugar, cornstarch, egg and egg yolk. 
7. Return to medium heat, whisking constantly, and bring back to a boil.
8. Reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes, whisking constantly to avoid scrambling.
9. Remove and cool in the refrigerator 1/2 hour.
10. Add the chopped figs.  Chill 1 hour.
11. Pour the fig mixture into the tart casing.  Smooth it out as best you can.
12. This tart should be cut and served at room temperature. 

Recipe: Whole Wheat Penne with Onion Sauce

Recipe Source: Bugialli, Giuliano.  Bugialli on Pasta.  Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York, 2000 p. 101

I'm always a little reluctant to use this book, I have to admit it.  It's a perfectly good book with plenty of interesting recipes, but I'm reluctant to give extra publicity to someone with such an objection to "undirected creativity."  I AM undirected creativity and innovation without Mr. Bugialli's guidelines.  My guidelines are my tastes and those of my guests, particularly my husband.  Those are more important to me than adhering slavishly to someone else's vision of what the dish should be.  Unless I'm working on a medieval recipe, in which case I'm trying to showcase the fact that food 1000 years ago didn't have to taste like wallpaper paste, I'm always going to customize my dishes to the needs and tastes of the people I'm feeding.

Take this recipe.  Mr. Bugialli provides variations to make the dish as it is made in Florence and in Campania.  (We will ignore the idea that every housewife in Florence and in Campania makes the dish in an identical way.  I know my own female Neapolitan relatives, none of whom makes her dishes just like any other relative, or just like me for that matter.  I'm just sayin'.)  The Tuscan version is made with butter.  The Campanian is made with a combination of lard and olive oil.  Well, my husband can only tolerate so much butter, and that tolerance had been exhausted in the other dish I was serving that night.  Lard comes from pork.  Even if my husband were willing to eat something cooked in lard - and he's not - the Fearless Fetus has some very strong objections to swine flesh in any form, and as long as we're sharing a digestive system her objections become mine.  Should we then either suffer massive digestive upset in the name of "authenticity?"  Perhaps we should simply not enjoy the recipe?  Sorry, neither was really an acceptable option.  I used olive oil, and you know what?  It came out just fine.  (Minette was suspicious, as you'll see in the second picture, but it really tasted quite good.)  I also ignored the parsley, not being much of a fan of parsley, and I used whole-wheat pasta because I've come to prefer the flavor and to give some added fiber to the dish. 

As a side note to the author, I also happen to really like goat cheese.  In pretty much all its forms (I've seen chocolate-covered goat cheese balls which seem a little suspicious to me.).  So there. 

Whole Wheat Penne with Onion Sauce (serves 4; approx. $1.55/serving)

2 lb red onions, peeled and quartered

1/2 cup olive oil

2 cups white wine

1 cup water

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

12 oz whole wheat penne

Equipment:

• Large, deep saute pan
• Pot to cook the pasta
• Colander
• Bowl

1. Soak the onions in cold water in the bowl for 30 minutes.
2. Drain, then coarsely chop the onions.
3. Heat the oil over medium heat.  Add the onions and saute 10 minutes, covered. 
4. Stir well, lower the heat, and add 1 cup of wine.
5. Cover.  Simmer 1/2 hour.
6. Add 1 cup of wine.  Cover and simmer another 1/2 hour.
7. Add 1/2 cup of water.  Cover and simmer 1/2 hour.
8. Add the second cup of water.  Cover and simmer 1/2 hour.
9. Prepare the pasta in heavily salted water. 
10. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and mix it with the onion mixture.  If your saute pan is not large enough for this, go ahead and dump the pasta into your serving vessel and top it with the onion mixture. 
11. Serve. 

Recipe: Pasta with Lamb Sausage, Grapes and Broccolini

I threw this together for a recent Sunday dinner.  I had been concerned that we didn't have nearly enough dishes that were a) high in carbohydrates (people coming to the Sunday open houses tend to do a lot of physical activity when they get here), and b) lacking in dairy (one of our guests has an allergy.)  It was inspired by a dish that I posted back in June, Sausage and Grapes.  To be honest, I'd purchased the grapes and the broccolini for other purposes the week before and really just needed to get them out of the kitchen.  The sausage was lamb sausage because a) I had it on hand, although frozen, and b) I can't eat pork anymore, which means that people eating my cooking don't get pork products either.  The pasta is whole wheat pasta for added fiber. 

Pasta with Lamb Sausage, Grapes and Broccolini (serves 8; approx. $2.47/serving)

1 lb lamb sausage, casings removed

1 1/2 bunches of grapes - I had one of those packages of three kinds of grapes, so I used half a bunch of each just for fun.

2 boxes (about 24 oz.) whole wheat pasta, cooked according to package instructions and drained

1/2 cup white wine

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 bunches broccolini, trimmed

Equipment:

• Large wok or saute pan
• Plate
• Slotted spoon 

1. Heat the wok.  Cook the sausages over medium heat until brown.  They should offer up enough fat to keep them from burning as you cook them.
2. When the sausages are browned, evacuate the sausages to the plate with the slotted spoon.  Add the olive oil.
3. Add the broccolini.  Toss to coat with the pan juices.  Cook 3 - 5 minutes.
4. Add the wine and the grapes.  Cook until the grapes burst their skins and begin to give up their juices. 
5. Return the sausages to the pan and saute until heated through.
6. Put the pasta in the serving bowl.  Top with the pan mixture, toss to combine, and serve. 

Recipe: Almond Sweets

Recipe Source: Darling, Jennifer Dorland.  Cookies for Christmas.  Meredith Books, Des Moines, 1999 p. 114.

It's that time of year again.... "Authorities" seem to be of two minds about Christmas cookies.  Some seem to believe that the making of Christmas cookies is an important family tradition that ought to be maintained and cherished in this country.  Others scream shrilly about rising obesity rates, diabetes, celiac disease and how irresponsible it is to encourage people to make things so unhealthy as cookies.  Guess which camp I fall in?  I do remember making Christmas cookies with my mom and my sister and sometimes my mom's friend.  Mom often had a real block about baking, which is no shame on her.  Lots of good cooks have a hard time with baking.  At Christmas time, though, it was like something broke through that block.  There were always cookies.  They were always good.  They were always great.  And we always enjoyed decorating them and helping to make them.  (We never, ever pitched hissy fits about how we'd rather be out with our friends, or reading a book, or doing anything but hanging around with our horrible big/little sister ((depending on who was distinctly not pitching a fit.))) 

These cookies are not part of that tradition.  I do remember them coming to my parents' annual Christmas Eve party, though.  They came on elaborate trays brought from a proper Italian bakery, usually brought by someone's grandma.  I had always assumed that the bakery was their natural point of origin, possibly an original recipe that would be lost when the bakery got devoured by the latest strip mall and big-box store.  My husband recently suggested that perhaps I ought to throw a few Christmas cookie recipes up on the site, so I turned to this book for inspiration. 

These cookies aren't exactly the cookies I remember, but they're pretty darned close.  I did make one change: I used almond extract instead of vanilla for the cookies.  After all, they're called almond sweets, right?  Where the recipe says "cooking oil," I used olive oil.  That's what I keep on hand.  To be honest, I was pretty proud of these.  Maybe someday I'll be the little old Italian grandma bringing these to a party, and someone else's daughter will be inspired to try to find the recipe when she gets older. 

Almond Sweets (makes 60 cookies; approx. $0.04/cookie.  Can't beat that!)

3 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

2 tablespoons milk

Red and green food coloring, if desired

Equipment:

• 2 mixing bowls
• 2 small bowls, if using food coloring
• 1 stand mixer
• 2 baking sheets
• Melon baller

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Lubricate your cookie sheets with whatever you see fit.  I used cooking spray.
3. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl.
4. In the bowl of the stand mixer, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and 1 teaspoon almond extract. 
5. Add in the flour mixture.  Beat well.
6. Use the melon baller to measure out sixty rounded cookies.  Divide them between the two baking sheets. 
7. Bake 12 minutes or until golden.  Allow to cool.  A wire rack is best for this purpose, but you can probably get away without it if you don't already have one.
8. In the second mixing bowl, combine the powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract and 2 tablespoons milk.  Mix until smooth.
9. If you want to have red and green icing, dole out 1/3 of the mixture into each of the two smaller bowls.  Put enough of the food coloring into each bowl to get your desired shade of red or green.  If you just want white cookies, skip to the next step.
10. When the cookies are cooled, dip the top of each cookie into the icing color of your choice. 
11. Serve!

Recipe: Seafood Barley "Risotto"

Recipe Source: Piras, Claudia.  Culinaria Italy.  H. F. Ullmann, 2007, p. 21

This recipe isn't like other risotto recipes I've made.  Well, in some ways it is.  I mean, I've subbed barley for Arborio rice lots of times.  I did it again here, because I really wanted more nutritional value and fiber than white rice usually affords.  What's the difference here?  No vegetables.  I looked at the recipe, and I looked at it again, and no, there were no vegetables in this dish.  Still, it was certainly a delicious dish, and you should absolutely make it sometime.  I didn't make a whole lot of changes.  I increased the amount of garlic and I used Lemony Vegetable Broth for the vegetable broth called for in the recipe.  Oh - the store where I shopped that day was distinctly lacking in squid, so I used scallops. 

Seafood Barley "Risotto" (serves 4; approx. $4.28/serving)

1/2 lb sea scallops

1/4 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

4 tablespoons olive oil

6 garlic cloves, crushed

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

1 lb mussels, scrubbed

1 cup white wine

1 3/4 cups pearled barley

3 cups (approx.) Lemony Vegetable Broth

Equipment:

• Large saucepan
• Ladle
• Slotted spoon or skimmer

1. Heat the oil in the saucepan. 
2. Add the shrimp, scallops, garlic and parsley.  Saute briefly.
3. Use the slotted spoon to evacuate the seafood to a plate.  Set aside. 
4. Add the mussels to the pan.  Cook until the shells have completely opened. 
5. Evacuate the mussels from the saucepan and set aside.
6. Add the barley to the pan.  Stir to coat well with the pan juices.
7. Add the wine.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer.
8. Add some broth, a ladleful at a time.  Stir until the broth is absorbed by the barley.  Repeat as necessary until the barley is tender.
9. Return the seafood to the pan and heat thoroughly. 
10. Serve.