Pesto Trapanese

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

There are days when I am a fan of Pesto Sauce, but then there are days where I’m not. I’ve come acorss some good store bought ones, but really, Pesto, for me, only tastes amazing when it’s home made, and given that I don’t have a basil plant (my supplier, Nonna, hasn’t hooked me up yet) I haven’t made home made Pesto in a while.

Then, while watching Lidias Italy (the thing I do EVERY night from 7 – 8 because I am that obsessed) I can across a recipe for Pesto Trapanese. The method is the same but the ingredients are a little different. This is something you NEED to try!

Ingredients

¾ pound cherry tomatoes, very ripe and sweet
12 leaves fresh basil
⅓ cup whole almonds, lightly toasted
2 garlic clove, crushed and peeled
¼ teaspoon peperoncino
½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for cooking the pasta
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated

This made enough sauce for 2 pasta dinners. If you’re going to dress the pasta within a couple of hours, leave the pesto at room temperature. You can refrigerate for longer storage, up to 2 days, or freeze for up to a month.

Steps

Put the tomatoes, garlic cloves, almonds, basil leaves, pepperoncino, 1/2 tsp. salt, and Parmigiano-Reggiano into a blender or food processor. Blend for a minute or more to a fine purée; scrape down the bowl and blend again if any large bits or pieces have survived.

With the machine still running, pour in the olive oil in a steady stream, emulsifying the purée into a thick pesto. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Cook your pasta as directed until it is al dente, lift it from the cooking pot, drain briefly, and drop onto the pesto. Toss together, sprinkle with cheese and serve!

Tips from the Chef…

It literally took me 5 minutes to make this Pesto sauce, so talk about quick and simple. As you will notice, the pesto has this great green and red texture to it, until you add the olive oil and it turns neon yellow! It’s like making pasta in the 80s. HA. I also sauteed some chicken in olive oil and added it to the pasta, just for some protein.

If I would suggest anything it would be to do this in a food processor. Maybe it’s just me but I hate using a blender because I find everything gets stuck in the bottom. Maybe I just don’t know what I am doing, but what I do know is that my next kitchen purchase is going to be a food processor!

This is probably one of the best pesto sauce I have ever had. No, it is not your classes Genovese Pesto, but it is a great alternative.

I modified the original recipe a bit, so if you wish to see it click HERE. Lidia has so many great, simple Italian recipes that I strongly suggest you catch an episode of her show or check out her recipes online. I am totally in love with her.

Enjoy!

Pizza Date for 2

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

I had been hearing some rumours that there was a new pizza place in town that was making fresh authentic Neopolitan pizza. No, not Nicli, but something else. Next thing you know I received an email about Verace Pizzeria in Gastown opening their doors to share their pizza with the city.

Located on Keefer street right beside T&T Supermarket Verace sits with a quaint little patio outside and a beautiful new restaurant inside. It’s a nice part of town, super close to the Skytrain and downtown, but quiet and somewhat removed from all the hussle and bussle which was nice.

Chad and I decided we would try it out, just the two of us. The restaurant wasn’t very busy, but it was early on a Monday night. We were given a choice of Natural Water or Fizzy Water (so very Italian, I loved it) and of course I had to go with the Acqua Frizzante. I love that it was complimentary instead of having to order a bottle of San Pellegrino. A definite plus in my book.

They had fresh Burrata in stock and we were so excited to try it out. Somehow we never came across this in Italy. Maybe that’s because it’s from Naples and we never actually stopped in city. Fail on our part!

I first learned about Burrata while watching an episode of Lidias Italy and have been obessed with it ever since. It was a little on the pricy side for an appitizer, but then again, it is flown, over night, from Italy. It was so amazingly good we just couldn’t contain ourselves. If you are a lover of cheese you NEED to try Burrata!

I decided to go super simple with my pizza choice this time around. I could have gone with the Margherita D.O.P. which is made with mozzarella di bufala, but again, I just was in the mood for something simple.

Margherita
Fresh plum tomato sauce, fior di latte mozzarella, grana padano, fresh basil and evoo

The flavours were fresh and delicious and the touch of evoo was perfection. I love good tasting olive oil!

Chad, being the ‘Diavola’ expert that he is, ordered the Diavola.

Diavola
Fresh plum tomatoes, spicy genoa salami, capicollo, roasted red onion and peppers topped with grana padano, fresh basil and evoo

This pizza probably had the most toppings of any Diavola pizza Chad’s had before, and he really enjoyed it. I stole a little onion while he wasn’t looking and it was delicious. What a clever ingredient to add!

The inside of the restaurant was beautiful. I may or may not be stealing some of their interior design ideas for our new house (whenever that happens!). It had a very comfortable feel, like I was having dinner in someones home. I can definitely see myself bring the extended family here for a big pizza dinner. The atmosphere was wonderful.

We were going to get the limoncello layer cake, as was suggested to me on Twitter, but we were so stuffed we just couldn’t eat any more. Instead, Chad got an espresso and I a bicherin.

Bicherin. I haven’t heard that word in ages. I didn’t actually think it was a real word, but rather something my Nonna made up in dialect. I had to laugh when I saw it on the menu. We joked with the Owner, Roberta, who just happened to be serving us that evening, about how non-Italians pronounce the word Bicherin. Here’s a hint, it is not pronounced Bitch-Erin, but rather Be-Cure-In!

Here she is, in all her glory. I usually shy away from coffee becuase my stomach doens’t seem to like it, but I had to try this out. It was perfect. The hot chocolate was rich and tasty and the espresso added the perfect kick. It was so unbelievably good and it didn’t upset my stomach at all.

We had a great experience at Verace. It was nice to meet Roberta and have her serve us. She was full of information (did you know their 900 degree oven is the only thing they use to cook with? That means all their desserts are made in their too!) and provided great service (I’m still obsessing over the Acqua Frizzante on tap. Genius!)

Now, what you are probably going to ask is, how does this compare to Nicli? Well, pretty darn close! The atmosphere and ambience of each resturant are totally different. Nicli feels very up scale, and Verace feels like home so they definitely fit into different niches. Both their pizzas are amazing, but I think the edge goes to Nicli only because their crust was crispier than Verace’s. The flavours and freshness was there with both pizzas.

You can also read Follow Me Foodies post comparing the two.

I love that Vancouver finally has amazing restaurants serving up pizza the TRUE Italian way. I can’t wait to go back to Verace!

A Weekend in White Rock

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

We spent the weekend in White Rock, this past. Well, essentially the whole weekend. Saturday was my cousins wedding, with the ceremony out in Burnaby at my Uncles Church (like all the cousins do) and then the reception out in South Surrey/White Rock. Strangely enough I was in a no picture mood, so I didn’t take any photos of the wedding despite carrying around my bulky DSLR all day long. Oh well, enough people took pictures that I didn’t really need to.

Between the ceremony and reception Elise and Ryan joined us for drinks on the In-Laws patio. We were spending the night, since there was no way I wanted to drive home from White Rock at 2 in the morning, plus we had birthday festivities in the area on Sunday.

It was a lovely afternoon of wine and sun shine on their beautiful patio. Mama Ciavarro does an amazing job with her garden and I love spending time on the patio taking in all the beauty.

Sunday we spent most of the day relaxing after doing some shopping at Grandview Corners Shopping District.

The Niece and Nephew came over and we indulged in some fresh local blueberries.

Emily just got her hair cut and officially became the cutest thing ever.

After blueberries and photos and relaxing we all headed over to Grandma Heagles for Jonas and Moms Birthday Party.

Jonas was pretty pumped over the Pirates of the Caribbean Lego Game for Wii that we got him.

Emily and I went exploring in the cat shed. Yes, Grandma has a shed just for her cats. It’s full of cozy blankets and toys, with a few gardening tools. The cats are adorable but I would probably die if I were to ever be locked in a cat shed, given my allergies.

It was a lovely weekend in White Rock. We don’t spend nearly as much time as we should out there. I’m glad we caught it on a sunny and warm weekend. It was absolutely perfect!

Pinkberry in Vancouver

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

I was lucky enough to be invited as Miss Alicia Quans personal guest to the launch of Canadas first ever Pinkberry. I love Pinkberry. Actually, I’m kind of obsessed with Pinkberry. Both times Claudia and I have been to LA for work I’ve made her stop and get a Pinkberry almost everyday. So naturally, when Alicia asked me if I wanted to go with her to a Pinkberry event I said YES!

The evening started off a bit rocky. Alicia had mapped out how to get to Park Royal and we took the Iron Workers Memorial bridge into North Van and followed the instructions. Well, somewhere along the way we had to make a choice as to whether we wanted to go to Whistler or Vancouver, according to the overhead sign. Well, Vancouver, obviously. WRONG. We ended up going over the Lions Gate Bridge back into Vancouver. 45 minutes later we had enjoyed a nice scenic tour of Stanley Park, downtown Vancouver, and North Van, before finally arriving at Park Royal! Oh well, better late than never, right?

The band Bonnie Dunn was playing and there were many a screaming girls because it just so happens that Cory Monteith of Glee fame is their drummer.

Miss Melissa and Miss Jennifer were there also. It was good to finally see Melissa after what feels forever and it was super nice to meet Jennifer who is also a fellow blogger!

I had the Coconut frozen yogourt with kiwi and chocolate shavings.

It was a great event despite our little detour to downtown Vancouver. It was nice to meet other fashion bloggers such as the lovely Solo Lisa and to mingle with all the whos who of the Pinkberry world.

We left the event just after 8 and there was still a HUGE line of people waiting to get into the store. I was super glad we got the Royal treatment and were able to have some delicious frozen yogourt without the wait!

Now I really need to plan more date in North Van.

Crepes and a Cart

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

So, last night didn’t got as planned.

We’ve been meaning to try and hit up a food cart downtown FOREVER but it seems that every time we plan it, it never actually works. Last night we were sure it was finally our time to eat delicious street food, but fate had other plans for us.

Since we don’t work in the downtown core I haven’t seen any of these food carts or food trucks around, so I wasn’t quite sure how it worked. I did, however, find a great website that gave a lot of info on the different food carts in Vancouver. I quickly realized that the majority of the carts downtown are lunch carts and therefore are gone by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. This left us a little weary as to what we were going to find for dinner.

We stumbled upon Poke’m, which closed at 5:30 and decided that we’d leave work a little early to catch some meat ball delight.

Well, we left work, got cash, found parking, walked to the corner, and…NOTHING! It was 10 after 6 and there was no cart to be seen. WHY!? Why can’t we catch a street meat break!? We have no idea what happened or why the cart wasn’t there. It was all very strange because Alicia had seen the cart there the day before, but yesterday…NOTHING.

Le sigh.

So, we made the best of a disappointing situation and walked up a few blocks to the Crepe Cafe. You can’t really be too sad when you have amazing crepes in front of you, right?

I use to frequent the Crepe Cafe but haven’t been in a while. Their Prociutto & Brie crepe was amazing, as expected. Add to that a nice glass of Merlo and I was happy with the fate of the situation. We were going to share a sweet Crepe but instead opted to walk down the street to catch Bad Teacher at the Scotia Theater and indulge in some butter pop corn and tasty nibs. Not a bad ending to the evening.

As for the street carts, they are still an elusive goal I have not yet concurred. I think Chad and I are going to try and find one one a Saturday, during the day. I hope we have better luck then with our past attempts.