If you’ve been around long enough, you may have noticed things are getting a bit green in here, what with a salad and a broccoli rabe-heavy spaetzle as my last two recipe posts. Green just seems like the thing to do in the middle of February. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing to counteract all that V-day red we’ve been seeing, or maybe I’m jumping the gun into March. Either way, it just feels right.

These recipes were inspired by the simple pear, basil and parmesan salad I made for L.A.’s Stir It 28 event for Haiti last weekend (that of which I adapted from Leite’s Culinaria). People really seemed to like the combination of pear and basil.

For those not familiar with Stir It 28, read the rundown here. A handful of dedicated and super-friendly food bloggers, caterers and chefs descended on Greg/SippitySup’s lovely Hollywood Hills kitchen in the name of Haiti. (I’m compelled to mention here that Greg has excellent taste in knives. Shun, baby.) We cooked for an estimated 75 guests, all whom donated to the Stir It 28 Haiti fund. For more coverage of the L.A. event, visit the Duo Dishes, The Food Addicts, Uncouth Gourmands, South Bay Rants n Raves and Domestic Divas. (I’ll add more links as they come in!) If you didn’t attend the event, you can still donate to the cause by visiting Flanboyant Eats or CocoCooks and clicking on the logo. All proceeds benefit Share Our Strength and Yele Haiti. Donations will be accepted until Feb. 28.

So back to the recipe: The pesto portion of these recipes can be doubled, tripled – quadrupled even – to suit your needs. And if you have more than an hour on your hands, I suggest cooking the onions down until they’re really browned — not just a golden brown. The darker they are, the sweeter they will be.

PEAR AND PESTO CROSTINI
Yield: 2 to 3 servings (or if you’re me, 1 serving)

• 1/2 loaf French bread
• 2 cups packed basil leaves
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano
• 3 tablespoons your best olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 Bosc pear

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice French loaf into 1/2-inch-thick slices, and brush (or spray, if you have one of those nifty Misto things) with olive oil. Place slices on baking sheet and toast in oven for 10-15 minutes, or until edges are a deep golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. While those are in the oven, make your pesto. In a food processor, combine basil leaves, garlic clove, pine nuts and Romano cheese. Pulse until pesto is coarse in texture, like coarse sand. Add in olive oil and process until fully incorporated. Taste. Add salt and pepper, if needed. Scrape pesto into a serving bowl or dish and set aside. (You should have about 3/4 cup.)
3. Cut pear into thin slices and place on a platter with crostini and pesto. To assemble: Spread pesto over crostini and top with pear and fresh ground black pepper, if desired. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for skirt steak/caramelized onion recipe.)

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Dear readers, I am in a funk. And not the good kind that allows you to wear a sequined gold dress and your sunglasses at night. The kind where everything you cook burns or tastes weird and everything you write reads cliché. It’s not a good place to be.

But onward we go, because cooking and writing is what we do here, however cringeworthy or awesome either turn out.

In the span of one week, four out of the five dishes prepared by my hands ended up as spectacular trainwrecks – ones that made microwaved frozen meals look like five-star food. The sole saving grace was this pasta with meat sauce, which is made annually at the first sign of winter’s chilly weather. It’s a hearty sauce thicker than blood, like an Italian chili almost, that goes well with garlic bread and even eaten alone in a bowl with a large spoon, should you be so bold.

In this case, it’s paired with a fresh pasta recipe adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio,” using just the basics: flour and eggs. Nothing else.

I’ve been making this meat sauce for years, and thus it’s a recipe built on intuition. It’s a sauce that does its job and does it well, and with all of the flops I’ve been cranking out lately, it also helps to remind me that success, however little or large, is very, very sweet. And filling. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipes)

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I always thought that any grilled sandwich with at least a 2:1 ratio of cheese to meat/veggies/etc. could be correctly defined as a grilled cheese. Currently 44 percent of voters on Serious Eats disagree. To this majority, grilled cheese is nothing more than bread, cheese and heat. Are they right?

Think of Campanile’s Grilled Cheese Night, and how it might offend this group of purists with it’s weekly nightmare of “grilled cheese” dishes like burrata with capers, both versions of Croque and Ahi tuna. None of these fit the literal meaning of grilled cheese as defined by this group. (I picture the purists huddled in a picketing pack outside of the restaurant, holding signs depicting sandwiches with big red Xs drawn through them.)

If we continue accepting only literal meanings, then many playful spins on certain culinary words wouldn’t quite work. Any reference of the word “steak” that doesn’t apply to actual meat would be wrong (one example that comes to mind is Marcel’s watermelon steak with tomatoes on season 2 of “Top Chef”). I’d also argue that the only true grilled cheese is just the cheese itself, like a grilled Halloumi or queso fundido. Being rigid in definitions takes the fun out of creating new dishes, doesn’t it?

Serious Eats reader Pavlov sums it up best with his comment: “A grilled cheese is whatever I say it is!”

That’s perfect. A grilled cheese is defined by whatever you say it is. It can be classic or have all the bells and whistles of a Campanile grilled cheese.

So today, my definition of grilled cheese has marinated onions, Dijon mustard and skirt steak — a personal homage to my favorite offering on Campanile’s menu. If you’re inclined, you can serve it with watermelon steaks for a truly non-literal meal.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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A lot of us have quite a tailored list to go through before we bestow the “Best” title upon anything having to do with barbecue or pulled meat.

For one, the best barbecue has to come from the hands of people who travel to county fairs by Mack Trucks packed with logs, iron smokers and grills the size of sedans. If it doesn’t come from a vehicle that beeps while backing up, we don’t want it.

If we have it at a restaurant, it has to be served by a burly dude in overalls and a shirt that looks like it was snatched from a picnic table. Better still if his fingers are perpetually curled into a loose fist, even when he’s not holding an iron pitchfork. And his smokehouse has to be no smaller than your two-car garage.

In other words, if it ain’t dirty or country, we don’t want none. Please turn your non-beeping vehicle around and go back whence you came.

It’s a similar story when we’re barbecuing at home. There are rituals up the wazoo, making it more of an event rather than a cuisine or cooking method. Many of us prep for days, marinating and coaxing any and all flavor into the meat. We won’t even look at our grills unless they can be filled with a pricy sack of (soaked) wood chips. No meat will touch anyone’s lips until you’ve stealthily added the “secret ingredient” to it, either. Modesty? Forget about it. “This is the absolute best (insert slow-cooked meat here) that you’ll ever know,” you say, as you plunk a heaping pile of charred and sauced animal onto a tablecloth resembling the ‘cue waiter’s shirt. “It’s the best. I’m the best. You will never have it better than this. Ever.”  (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for more)

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After writing this post on weird food laws, I was left with a hunk of Roquefort and not a single idea what to do with it.

When you don’t have a hunk of Roquefort, you can think of tens of recipes to use it in – I mean, crumble it over a salad at the very least, right? But when you have a little Roquefort wedge nestled between your palms, it’s an entirely different story. You’re nervous. It’s like a femme fatale, the Roquefort, taunting with all of its sultry. You have me now, but whatever will you do with me? And then there’s you, the bumbling man who should have been careful with what he wished for, questioning his manhood with a worried look to boot. Gulp. What will I do with you?

So there I was in my kitchen, with a pungent hunk of Roquefort, a head full of imagined silver-screen romance scenarios between me and the cheese, and an inexplicable, massive brain fart. Reluctantly, I put it back in my fridge. My little mademoiselle, it’s not you, it’s me, I said. I need more time.

For the next week, the Roquefort lingered patiently in my fridge while I plotted out some smooth moves. I wanted something substantial, yet something that would also use the Roquefort in a subtle way, without letting it overpower the other ingredients. The week finally yielded what I had been waiting for: A rough recipe sketch of pork with apples and Roquefort. It would be a roulade, to marry everything into a single, unified dish. After a seemingly endless period of debate, there would be a happy ending for the Roquefort and I after all. Don’t they always say that good things come to those who wait?

For this recipe, you’ll need some kitchen twine, a meat mallet and a thermometer. The apple butter sauce is a spinoff of beurre blanc, which is usually a light butter sauce reserved for seafood. The addition of chicken stock or broth beefs up the sauce – so it can stand up to a the Roquefort and protein. I serve the roulade over a pile of roasted yams with sea salt, which add a little more salt and sweet to the dish. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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My Food 101 column on beef burgundy ran today in The Orange County Register (woo!), and I’m relieved that So Cal’s weather is finally cooling down. Two days ago, I was fretting mess, imagining faceless people reading the paper in shorts and big sunglasses, chuckling at the thought of attempting my recipe given the hot weather. I love sunny weather as much as the next person, but who wants to eat a winter braise when it’s 85 degrees out? Thank you Mother Nature, for sending rain and allowing me to appear relevant.

• Say ‘Oui’ to beef Burgundy
• By CYNTHIA FUREY
• Special to the Register

Boeuf Bourguignon is a classic French dish, both hearty and elegant when served over mashed potatoes, thick egg noodles or with a crusty baguette to sop up the flavorful sauce. Maybe you’ve shied away from making it the past because it sounds difficult (heaven only knows that I did), but fancy French dishes are often easier than they sound. “Boeuf Bourguignon” essentially translates to “Beef Burgundy,” or beef cooked with Burgundy wine. This French stew is a great intro to cooking with wine if you never have before.

Classically, the dish starts on the stove and finishes in the oven, but you can skip the oven and continue the braising process stovetop. Use a heavy-bottomed pot if you have one, and when in the home-stretch simmer, turn the burner on as low as you can go without the flame flickering. The stew will braise slowly, resulting in a home filled with the sweet aroma of wine, and a pot full of fork-tender chunks of beef.

Most braising recipes call for a sturdy cut of meat that can withstand the low and slow cooking without turning into mush. Cuts like beef chuck and stew meat work well because they contain a lot of collagen, a strong connective tissue that eventually melts down into a gelatin. The result is soft, buttery meat that you can pull apart with your hands (or fork). While you’re cooking, you can actually see this process for yourself: In its initial cooking stages, the meat cubes seem to seize up, and it becomes difficult jab with a fork. But as time passes on and the collagen melts away, the beef becomes softer, taking on the flavors of the wine, until finally you are left with meat that falls apart and is a delight to eat.

Before cutting beef into cubes, trim meat of excess fat, paying close attention to the silver skin, a silvery, thick membrane that may be present on top of the chuck roast. This is inedible. To remove, run your knife under the silver skin and peel it back from the roast.

There are differing opinions on what quality of wine to use while cooking. Some believe that you can use a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck and the stew will be just as flavorful as if you had used a Reserve or high-end wine. And then there are some that swear by cooking with the latter. I’ve always adhered to this rule: If it’s a wine you wouldn’t drink, don’t use it to cook. Which means, if you’ve been known to toss back a glass of Two-Buck Chuck and not even flinch (and there’s nothing wrong with that), then you will be fine using it in your dish. Always use a wine that you enjoy drinking. In this recipe, you can also substitute other dry red wines for Burgundy, like Pinot Noir, Bordeaux or Cabernet Sauvignon.

This recipe is simple: You finish the initial preparation, then dump everything into a pot and let the heat do all of the work. A bonus: Boeuf Bourguignon is more flavorful the following day (the sitting time allows for the flavors to meld) so it’s a great do-ahead dish for a dinner party. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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Beware, fellow foodies, of the population that boasts membership to our brotherhood but who are actually in a different class all to themselves. They’re called “food snobs.” And they’re very, very dangerous.

Foodies are always looking for what we call “authentic” cuisine, but we know that the term is a loose one and can mean any number of things, depending on the individual foodie. But for food snobs, the word “authentic” is rigidly defined.

Examples: Food snobs wanting Italian will only go to a place owned by a Scarface mob boss twirling his moustache and plotting your off if you make a face like his Nonna’s spaghetti has too much salt. For a bowl of pho, food snobs will only walk into the shoebox-of-a-restaurant with a lucky dollar on the wall and an English-translated menu that you want to edit with a thick, red Sharpie.

Foodies also frequent these places (which are actually quite good), but unlike food snobs, we are willing to try that Italian place owned by Koreans or the Vietnamese place out in the middle of Kansas. Food snobs will not.

Food snobs also think “authentic” means “extreme.” $50 for cassoulet at a French bistro? Authentique. 50 cents for a street taco? Muy autentico. Foodies love these places too, but we also frequent places where cassoulet doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and tacos cost $5. Food snobs will not.

Foodies know that cuisine can be authentic as long as it’s made with good intentions. Which means we think stellar of that pizza place owned by the blond with the beer gut. Which means we heart Rick Bayless. In the eyes of a foodie, the people who produce authentic food are the people who produce dishes enthusiastically, with passion. People like you and me.

So what else does authenticity mean to foodies? It means that you can make chicken tikka masala without a drop of Indian blood coursing through your veins. And it means that I, a Viet/Irish/Italian hybrid, can make a decent bowl of pho. My recipe may not be authentic by food-snob definition, but you can be sure that its intentions are good.

(CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR RECIPE)

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