Recipe: Angel Hair Pasta with Steak, Basil, and Almonds

My cousin, Jess, got me a Barnes & Noble gift card for my birthday and gave me the great idea to get a new cookbook with it, and that's just what I did. As many of you could probably guess, I got a recently published Giada De Laurentiis cookbook, Giada at Home (I promise I looked at cookbooks by other chefs, but there were just too many good recipes in this one that I couldn't pass up). I've already marked a handful of recipes I want to try, and tonight was my first try at one of them, a pasta dish with a fresh salsa-style sauce, crunchy almonds, and perfectly-seasoned steak. Just a word of caution...be sure you get beef tenderloin steaks and not some other cut. I accidentally picked up the wrong cut, seeing "tenderloin" written on the package, but not noticing the "chuck" also written on it, a.k.a. I got a much less tender and much cheaper piece of meat that was not nearly as tender as the real deal would have been. The dish was still good, but to get it right, you really need the proper beef tenderloin steaks.

Serves: 4-6
Prep. time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Food processor

Ingredients

• 1 lb. beef tender loin steaks
• Salt and pepper, for seasoning
• 2 tsp. herbes de Provence
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling on the steaks
• 8-16 oz. angel hair, spaghetti, or other long, thin pasta
• 1, 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes and their juice
• Approx. 2 cups (I used two, 2 oz. packs of prepackaged) basil
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 cup smoked almonds (if you're like me and you can't find smoked almonds in your local grocery store, buy regular sliced or slivered almonds and toast them in the oven for just a few minutes at 350*F)
• Italian cheese, like Parmiggiano-Reggiano or Pecorino-Romano, to taste

Directions
Move an oven rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 450*F. Place the steaks on a rimmed baking sheet and season both sides with salt, pepper, and herbes de Provence, then drizzle with olive oil. Roast for 10-12 minutes to get steaks to medium doneness (less time for medium rare, more for medium well). Remove the steaks from the oven and let them rest on a cutting board for 10 minutes. In the meantime, bring a medium to large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta to the water and cook according to package instructions (about 4-5 minutes). Drain and return to pot, drizzle with a little olive oil to keep it from sticking, then place the lid on the pot to keep the pasta warm. In a food processor, combine the dice tomatoes and their juice, garlic, lemon zest and juice, basil, and 1/4 cup olive oil. Blend until coarsely chopped. Pour the sauce over the warm pasta and toss to combine. Add the almonds (be sure they are either sliced, slivered, or crunched up into pieces) and toss to combine. Either serve the steaks whole, alongside the pasta, or slice the steaks into 1/4-inch pieces and toss with the pasta, then serve. Serve topped with Italian cheese if desired.

This dish is the sort of dish that can easily transition from a summer meal to a winter meal. The fresh, uncooked sauce (warmed through by the hot pasta), packed with crisp basil and bright tomatoes, adds a summery feel to the dish, but the smoked or toasted almonds add a warmth and nuttiness that makes it perfect for colder weather. The steak is the perfect compliment to this pasta, but chicken breasts, seasoned the same way, would work just as well in the dish.

Recipe: Mini Anise-flavored Biscotti with Orange Glaze and Chocolate Drizzle

In my last post, I wrote about the collection of spicy, sweet, and salty spices we collected at Penzeys Spices yesterday and mentioned my plans for some of them. While strolling around the store with my dad, I came across various jars of anise—powdered, ground, whole—and my dad said he'd enjoy the black licorice-flavored spice in a sugar cookie, so my thoughts started swirling around recipe ideas. I picked up a small bottle of pure orange extract as we ventured into the baking and pastry section of the store and knew that that flavor paired with black licorice would work well, so I decided to make some sort of cookie with an orange glaze. After searching for "anise cookies" online and seeing biscotti mentioned several times (my final choice is adapted from this recipe), I decided they would be perfect, especially in our house filled with tea and coffee drinkers who love to dip cookies in their drinks. These cookies take a little time to make, but they're perfect with a cup of tea or coffee and they'd look beautiful wrapped up in a basket or bag and given as a house-warming gift or a dessert for a party.

Serves: Many; yields about 80-90 cookies, depending on how small you cut the pieces
Prep. time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 35 min. - 50 min.
Difficulty: Easy - Moderate

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup olive oil (pure or light)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp. anise seed, crushed or powdered (I used Spanish cracked anise)
• 3 & 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tbsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup sliced almonds
• Approx. 1 & 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• Approx. 1/4 cup milk (2%, 1%, or skim)
• Approx. 1 tbsp. orange extract (or to taste)
• Approx. 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli brand)
• Red and yellow food coloring
• White sanding sugar

Directions
Preheat oven to 350*F. Using a mixer or whisking by hand, lightly beat the eggs, then add in the oil, sugar, and anise, mixing lightly to combine. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt, and almonds and mix to combine. (I used a mixer to do all of this, keeping it on a slow/low setting—it blended the ingredients more easily and more consistently.) The dough will be thick and sticky, but smooth.
Divide the dough into six pieces, lightly flour them, and roll each into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Place the six logs onto two greased or parchment-lined baking sheets and bake until they each are slightly golden-brown and the center is cooked, approx. 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and immediately slice logs into about 1 to 2 inch-thick diagonal pieces (remember, these are mini biscotti, so they'll be about 2-4 inches long and about 1-2 inches wide). Place the tray of pieces back into the oven and bake 5-10 minutes (5 if you want slightly softer cookies, 10 if you want really crunchy/hard cookies). Remove from oven, flip the pieces over so the tops of the cookies are now face down on the tray, and bake another 5-10 minutes. Remove from oven and flip the cookies back over so the tops are facing up again and let cool on the baking sheets. The cookies will be light-colored or slightly golden brown.

To make the glaze: Put approx. 1 & 1/2 cups of powdered sugar into a small bowl and mix in the milk, stirring until the mixture is a whitish-clear, semi-thick liquid. Add approx. 1 tbsp. orange extract to the mixture and stir. Add more or less of the extract depending on how strong you want the flavor to be—taste it as you mix (using a new spoon each time, of course!) so you get the flavor you want. For the coloring: I added in two drops of red and two drops of yellow food coloring to get a pale, creamy orange color, but if you want a brighter orange, follow the instructions on the food coloring box or simply add more of each color until you get the desired shade. Using a small spoon, drizzle the orange glaze over the cooled biscotti. Sprinkle white sanding sugar over the biscotti while the glaze is still wet to give the cookies a little sparkle.

To make the chocolate drizzle: Put approx. 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips into a small, microwave-safe bowl and microwave in short spurts (start off microwaving for about 45 seconds, and work down from there until the mixture is melted and smooth). Be VERY careful not to burn or overcook the chocolate—heating it for shorter amounts of time on lower heat is better. Do not add oil, cream, or water to the mixture. Once melted, drizzle the chocolate, using a small spoon, over the biscotti. Sprinkle more white sanding sugar on top if desired.

These cookies are sweet and crunchy, and the orange glaze and chocolate add a little creaminess to them. Biscotti are able to take on a variety of flavors and toppings to create almost endless flavor combinations— chocolate and mint, caramel, coffee, and cherry, to name a few—so play around with extracts, spices, chocolates, and nuts and berries to see what you like best. I'm planning on making a mixed batch of biscotti during the winter holiday season so I can take them to parties and gift them to friends and family, but they're perfect to keep around the house as snacks. They keep in an air-tight container for at least two weeks, and can be frozen for later use.