Monday, August 10, 2009

Julie & Julia Inspire the Lazy Woman!

What a delicious movie! Even if you only go to see Meryl Streep execute the most charming portrayal of Julia Child, you will be seriously pleased you did.

My only recommendation is that you stock your refrigerator before you leave for the movie. My boyfriend and I were starving when we left the theatre and had planned to go out to eat afterwards, but we just had to cook something! So, we stopped at the market. At home we knew we had the most beautiful tiny purple artichokes and some beautiful multi-colored pasta. So we stocked up on all the fixins' to create a colorful feast.

Here's what we did....

Baby Purple Artichokes -- cut them in half, add olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar, a splash of balsamic, and some garlic salt. We marinated them for just about 1/2 hour and then threw them on the grill til they looked almost burned. Then we threw them in a 400 degree oven for about 1/2 to get them nice and soft. NOTE: the way you eat these is you just eat pull the meat off with your teeth, just like if you were just eating the "meat" off of one leaf of an artichoke.

Tri-Colori Pasta with Puttanesca Sauce -- Sautee four or five cloves of chopped garlic in olive oil until they are starting to brown. Add a few anchovies for a couple minutes to further flavor the oil. Then add a large can of chopped tomatoes, a couple tablespoons of capers, a couple pinches of red pepper flakes. Sautee while you get the pasta cooked up.

Yellow & Red Beet and Fennel Salad -- Boil up the beets (some yellow and some red) until they are tender when pierced by a fork. Once cooked, put them in a colander and run cold water over them. After a couple of minutes they'll be cool enough to work with. The skin will come off very easily. Then slice them up. Slice up the fennel bulb (you don't use the green fern-like leaves for this) in thin little strips. Toss it all up in your favorite vinaigrette recipe. We made a quick mustard vinaigrette. Throw on some toasted pine nuts.

It was the most delicious array of flavors, but the colors...reds, yellows, purples, greens...were slightly inebriating. First the movie, then the frolicking shopping coming up with a menu, then the colors in front of me...but it was the finale to a yummy day!

"Bon Appetit" as Julia always said!

1 comment:

  1. Peter2:13 PM

    It's ten at night here in London,I've just read this week's recipe, and now I'm putting on my shoes so I can march over to the local supermarket and buy all the fixins'

    There's going to be some very late night cooking going on soon

    Great recipe, Lazy Woman

    ReplyDelete