Category Archives: Beef

ITALIAN-STYLE CARPACCIO SANDWICH

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I found these Italian fashion sketches on ebay, and they hang in my daughter’s room. According to the seller, Paolo, also known as ebay seller ranger335, his aunt owned a fashion house in the 1960s.  Eva’s Fashion House employed six agents, who traveled throughout Italy and the south of France showing sketches of his aunt’s collections to dressmakers.  The dressmakers would order designs, and Eva’s Fashion House would provide them with whatever was necessary to make each garment.

Each sketch is a handmade original, using watercolors and airbrushing.  Paolo inherited his aunt’s design sketches, and I believe he must have thousands of drawings.  You can still find them on ebay from time to time.  The colors are bright, and the drawings are detailed and whimsical.  If you’re looking for something fun for a young girl’s room or a powder room, these are perfect.

 

A stunning outfit to wear to the next PTO meeting

I confess, I am not a fashionista.  When it comes to my wardrobe, “Italian style” means a blouse with spaghetti sauce splattered on it.  And if you’re a woman who wears anything larger than an A-cup bra, you know exactly where those spaghetti sauce splatters are.  Yep, sitting right there on the old Continental Shelf.

Even though I lack Italian fashion sense, I have a great appreciation for Italian food.  I grew up in New York, in a town that had a lot of Italian families.  My friends’ moms were incredible Italian home cooks.  I used to love walking into their homes and smelling gravy simmering on the stove.  If we were lucky, we’d be invited to roll meatballs to add to the gravy.

There was one Italian mom I remember particularly well, not for her style or cooking, but for her vocal chords.  This was back in the days before cell phones (back before pretty much everything, now that I think about it), when it was much more challenging to pin down your kid’s whereabouts.  When dinnertime rolled around, if her son hadn’t made it home, instead of phoning all over the neighborhood, she’d just fling the door open, and at the top of her lungs would yell, “ANT-NY, DINNER!”  To this day, every Anthony I meet is secretly an Ant-ny to me.

One of my family’s current favorite Italian foods is carpaccio, a dish from the Piedmont region of Italy, invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice.  The original dish was comprised of thin slices of raw beef with a dijon mustard sauce.  Today, carpaccio is used more generically, to mean thinly sliced raw meat, fish, or even vegetables.  It took me a long time to come around to carpaccio, as I’m not a fan of raw beef.  I think I can trace it back to my time working in New York.  The law firm I worked at in Manhattan was in the Pan Am (now the MetLife) Building.  We occasionally had receptions at the Sky Club at the top of the building, and steak tartare was one of the club’s signature dishes.  It was my running joke — a waiter would stick the tray in front of me and ask, “Steak tartare?” and I’d ask him if he wouldn’t mind running it under the broiler for a minute or two.  Yeah, I know, the waiters hated me.

Inspired by the vintage Italian fashion sketches, I tried my hand at making carpaccio, using rare roast beef from the deli counter, instead of raw beef.  Maybe it wasn’t authentic, but there wasn’t a caper, arugula stem, or sliver of parmesan cheese left on the plate when my family got through with it.  The next day, I still had carpaccio “fixins,” so I surprised my daughter with a carpaccio sandwich on pretzel bread for her school lunch.  I got a text from her in the middle of the day — “My sandwich was awesome!!!”  My husband and I laughed that she was probably the only kid in her school, in Houston, maybe even in the U.S., that brought a carpaccio sandwich to school for lunch that day.  Lucky girl!

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ITALIAN-STYLE CARPACCIO SANDWICH ON PRETZEL ROLL
Author: 
Serves: 2
 
Ingredients
  • 2 pretzel rolls, split horizontally
  • 6 ounces thinly-sliced rare deli roast beef
  • 2 teaspoons olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
  • 2 cups baby arugula
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 2 teaspoons capers
  • ½ ounce shaved parmesan cheese
Instructions
  1. For each sandwich, arrange roast beef slices on cut side of pretzel roll bottom. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil and lemon juice. Add arugula and toss to combine. Season arugula with salt and pepper, to taste. Mound arugula on top of roast beef, and top with capers and parmesan shavings. Add pretzel roll top, slice in half, and serve.

 

 A plate of carpaccio, using rare deli roast beef.

“Awesome” carpaccio sandwich in the making.

“ANT-NY, LUNCH!”

STUFFED POBLANOS

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Meet Baby I See You, a recent estate sale find.  This doll has crazy eyes that appear to be following you.  Or maybe they really do follow you.  As the box threatens, “Walk to the Left.  Move to the Right.  Wherever you go, you are never out of sight.”

It should come as no surprise that this doll was still in its original packaging (i.e., never played with), where it has been safely twist-tied down for nearly a quarter of a century (“Gee, grandma, thanks for the stalker doll.”).  Until now.

This is one creepy doll.  Even my teenagers have requested that I “get it out of the house.”  (Fat chance of that happening now that I know they’re scared of it.)  I’m not sure, but I think the Littlest Stalker may have been the inspiration for Glenn Close’s character Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction.  You have to admit, the similarities are hard to ignore — the wild blonde perm, the crazy eyes . . . .

 “Walk to the Left.  Move to the Right.

  Wherever you go, you are never out of sight.” 

“I’m not gonna be ignored, Dan.”

They should have named this doll Baby I.C.U., not Baby I See You, because I’ll tell you, if I ever stumbled across this creeper doll in the middle of the night, I would have had a heart attack.  In fact, if I’d had one of these dolls when the kids were little, I would never have needed to hire a babysitter — just plunk this demon doll down in the middle of the room and my kids would have sat there until we returned, too terrified to move.

But alas, I did have to hire babysitters.  Chela was one of the first ones I trusted to watch my daughter.  Chela did some housekeeping for us, and after the kids were born she would babysit for us occasionally.  I remember when we found out we were pregnant with my daughter and excitedly ran out to buy “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.”  When I came home the next day after Chela had been there, I found a note taped to the book that read “Is it you, Angel?”  She knew before we had told a single soul.  Long after she became too sick to work due to complications from diabetes, she would still call on everyone’s birthday.  She also checked in every year after receiving our Christmas card, to tell me how great the kids looked and remark on how much they’d grown, and fill me in on what her beloved son Manny was up to.

Usually, I’d order pizza for the kids and their babysitters.  But one time, I had 2 leftover stuffed poblanos in the refrigerator, and I told Chela she was welcome to have them.  When I came home, she looked at me, and said simply, “Oh, those peppers . . . .”  This was high praise, indeed.  I think of her every time I make them.

Chela passed away a few years ago.  She was only 48.  About a year before she died, she wrote a farewell, which her family printed and handed out at her funeral.  She said that she was not sad and was ready to go.  She said she looked forward to being able to eat whatever she wanted, even “a whole box of cookies with a lot of sugar.”

Inspired by recollections triggered when I sprung Baby I See You from her cardboard prison, and in memory of my special friend Chela, I’m sharing my recipe for Stuffed Poblanos.  They aren’t difficult to make, but be careful handling the peppers when you’re peeling them, so as not to tear them.

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STUFFED POBLANOS
Author: 
 
Ingredients
  • 4 large or 6 medium poblano peppers
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 pound lean ground beef
  • 11-ounce can corn, rinsed and drained
  • 14.5-ounce can petite diced tomatoes, rinsed and drained
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
  • ½ teaspoon dried oregano
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • Pinch of cayenne
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 2 cups grated cheddar, colby jack, or monterey jack cheese
Instructions
  1. Preheat broiler. Using a small knife, slit peppers lengthwise down one side, being careful not to cut through to other side. Place peppers on foil-covered baking sheet, and broil until beginning to blister and blacken. Turn peppers using tongs, and broil other side. Set aside to cool. When peppers are cool enough to handle, gently remove seeds and peel off skin.
  2. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and saute until golden. Add garlic and saute one minute more. Add ground beef and cook until browned, breaking up with a spoon as necessary. Add corn, tomatoes, parsley, oregano, chili powder, and cayenne, and continue to cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup of the cheese.
  3. Carefully spoon filling into the peppers, dividing evenly among peppers. Place in an ovenproof baking dish, and sprinkle remaining cheese over peppers. Place under broiler 2-3 minutes, or until cheese is melted. (If prepared ahead, bake at 375 degrees until heated through and cheese is melted, about 20 minutes.) Serve hot.

Ready to go under the broiler. 

Nicely charred.

Seeded, peeled, and ready to be stuffed.

Almost ready for the oven.

Now they’re ready!

Ta-da!

Enjoy!