Herb Focaccia Pizza

Carlene got hungry while she was working in the store last night, so she whipped up a focaccia pizza using some items we had on hand here. It was fabulous! Half a loaf of bread made eight good-sized pieces – enough for all four of us to go home thinking we didn’t need to have dinner!

Ingredients:
One baked herb focaccia loaf, split laterally
Tomato paste
Olive oil
La Piana Basil Pesto
La Piana Grilled Eggplant
Fresh tomato, sliced
Cucina Viva Mozzarella

Preparation:
Drizzle olive oil over cut side of focaccia, then spread a layer of tomato paste over all. (Any of the tomato tapenades we have in stock would also work well for this.) Arrange grilled eggplant on the tomato paste base, then spoon on pesto evenly. Distribute sliced tomatoes, then top with fresh mozzarella. Bake at 375°F until the cheese softens, then slice and serve. If you’d like to add meat, try some of our Busseto prosciutto or Molinari pepperoni. Buon appetito!

Just in time for Insalata Caprese: Fresh Mozzarella

Fresh basil and tomatoes are beginning to appear at farmers markets, and Grapevine Cottage just received its first order of fresh Mozzarella cheese made in Wisconsin for Cucina Viva.

One of the great summertime salads is Insalata Caprese, which is as simple to make as it is delicious. All it takes is sliced fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, fresh basil, freshly-ground pepper, a little salt, and a drizzle of high-quality olive oil.

Cucina Viva’s Farmstead Fresh Wisconsin Mozzarella is $4.95 for an 8-ounce ball.

Entering picnic season – be prepared!

The Symphony on the Prairie concert schedule is under way, and the summer movies at the Indianapolis Museum of Art have begun. And it’s June, which increases the chances you’ll be needing to buy someone a nice wedding gift.

For all those events, a picnic cooler is the perfect solution. Some models are high-tech, insulated ripstop nylon upgrades of traditional wicker picnic baskets, while others are built along the lines of backpacks or carry-on bags – but packed with plates, glasses, utensils, napkins and tablecloths instead of clothes and three-ounce travel bottles.

Grapevine Cottage carries picnic coolers in a variety of configurations from Picnic Time and Picnic at Ascot, ranging in price from $24.95 to $129.95. Come pick one out, and start planning some picnics!

A little wine art

Looking for a new way to utilize your wine accessories? Here’s a shot of downtown Zionsville as seen through Grapevine Cottage’s front window in a Ravenscroft decanter stopper placed on the granite base of a Rogar wine opener....

Shrimp and Grits

by Tom Landshof

Last week we visited Bridgeton Mill, which is located in Parke County, Indiana – home to 32 covered bridges and an annual Covered Bridge Festival. The Bridgeton Mill is a beautiful historic site as well as a fully operational gristmill using massive French Buhr stones to gently grind wheat into flour and corn into meal and grits. We bought some blue corn grits (which accounts for the color of the grits in the pictures) and it inspired us to make the following recipe.

Adapted by Suzanne and Tom Landshof from recipes by Martha Nesbit, Paula Deen and Southern Living magazine.

Ingredients: (makes 4 servings)

2 cups water
1¼ cup chicken broth
¾ cup half-and-half
¾ tsp. salt
1 cup stone ground grits
1½ cup shredded Cheddar cheese
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbs. butter
½ tsp. hot sauce (optional)
6 bacon slices
1 lb. large shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ tsp. black pepper
1/8 tsp. salt
¼ cup flour
1 cup sliced mushrooms
½ cup chopped green onions
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup chicken broth
2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
¼ tsp. hot sauce (optional)

Preparation

Bring water, broth, half-and-half and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan; gradually whisk in grits. Reduce heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 15 to 25 minutes or until thickened. Stir in Cheddar and Parmesan cheese, butter and hot sauce. Keep warm.

Cook bacon in a large skillet until crisp; remove bacon, and drain on paper towels, reserving 3 tablespoon drippings in skillet. Cut bacon in ½ inch strips while warm, and set aside.

Sprinkle shrimp with pepper and salt; dredge in flour. Sauté mushrooms in hot drippings in skillet 5 minutes or until tender. Add green onions and sauté 2 minutes. Add shrimp and garlic, and sauté 2 minutes or until shrimp are lightly brown. Stir in chicken broth, lemon juice and hot sauce and cook 2 more minutes, stirring to loosen particles from bottom of skillet.

Serve shrimp mixture over hot cheese grits. Top with crumbled bacon; serve

Note:

This recipe calls for stone ground grits, not hominy. Hominy or nixtamal is dried maize (corn) kernels which have been treated with an alkali. Easy to make and easy to eat.

Hominy or nixtamal is dried maize (corn) kernels which have been treated with an alkali. The traditional U.S. version involves soaking dried corn in lye-water (sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide solution), traditionally derived from wood ash, until the hulls are removed. Hominy grits is grits made from nixtamalized corn, or hominy.

Grits is a Native American corn-based food, common in the southern United States, consisting of coarsely ground corn. Grits can be served hot or cold and as a base for a multitude of dishes from breakfast to dessert, depending on the additives. Traditionally the corn for grits is ground by a stone mill. The results are passed through screens, with the finer part being corn meal, and the coarser being grits. Many communities in the U.S. used a gristmill up until the mid-20th century, with families bringing their own corn to be ground, and the miller retaining a portion of the corn for his fee.

Three-quarters of grits sold in the United States is sold in “the South” stretching from Texas to Virginia, also known as the “grits belt.” The state of Georgia declared grits its official prepared food in 2002. Similar bills have been introduced in South Carolina, with one declaring, “Whereas, throughout its history, the South has relished its grits, making them a symbol of its diet, its customs, its humour, and its hospitality, and whereas, every community in the State of South Carolina used to be the site of a grits mill and every local economy in the State used to be dependent on its product; and whereas, grits has been a part of the life of every South Carolinian of whatever race, background, gender, and income; and whereas, grits could very well play a vital role in the future of not only this State, but also the world....”

Yellow grits include the whole kernel, while white grits use hulled kernels.

Slow cooker Osso Bucco

I’m not a big fan of convenience food, but my experience yesterday with a slow cooker dinner from Delicaé Gourmet changed my thinking somewhat.

These aren’t complete dinners – think of them as a kind of Hamburger Helper for gourmets. In the case of the Osso Bucco, one needs to provide meat, diced tomatoes, beef broth and wine in addition to the barley, spice and vegetable packets included in the Delicaé Pantry kit.

The box promises a “5 Minute Prep Time,” but that didn’t hold true in my case. I used three whole lamb foreshanks, and took some time to trim away a lot of fat and fell. I seasoned them with pepper and browned them on all sides in olive oil. After that, it went together quickly – I just put the shanks in the bottom of my crock pot, layered the contents of the barley, vegetable and spice packets over them, poured a can of drained diced tomatoes over all that, added beef broth and wine, turned the slow cooker on to low then left for the day. Quite a bit less time-consuming than making it from scratch!

When I returned that evening after working all day on remodeling my dad’s bathroom, the house was filled with a wonderful aroma – and dinner was ready! It was quite toothsome, and how nice to be able to simply put Osso Bucco in one bowl, salad in another, and sit down to eat! I will definitely make this again, though I may try the Mediterranean Lamb Shanks kit first.

Some tips: If you plan on using a round slow cooker, the shanks will fit in the pot better if you have your butcher saw them in half. If you use an oval pot, you should have no problem fitting them in.

The recipe calls for low-sodium beef broth. I used some that wasn’t particularly low in salt, but compensated by seasoning the lamb shanks with pepper only.

Two cups of red wine are called for, and I used Château Pesquie Cuvée des Terasses 2006. At $10.99 per bottle it’s inexpensive enough to cook with, and it’s excellent to drink – it went perfectly with dinner.

A variety of Delicaé Pantry slow cooking kits are available at Grapevine Cottage; all are $6.50.

Rustic Olive party sandwich

Our operations manager, Paul Johnson, came up with a novel and tasty way to use a loaf of the olive bread we bake on Saturdays....

1 Rustic Olive loaf
8 oz. ground meat
1 small can or 4 oz. fresh sliced mushrooms
1/3 cup Napa Valley Roasted Tomato Balsamic Condiment (available at Grapevine Cottage)
2 Tbs. sun-dried tomato strips, olives, or other goodies
6 oz. shredded Mozzarella

Preheat oven to 360°F, or turn on your gas grill to medium heat.

Brown the meat in a skillet, seasoning to taste with a little salt and pepper. I used ground beef, but turkey, Italian sausage, or a combination would work. No tofu!

Add the mushrooms and continue to sauté for a couple of minutes.

Moisten with the tomato stuff (or use whatever marinara-type sauce you have handy) and heat until some of the liquid reduces and the mixture "tightens up" a little. Remove from heat and set aside.

Cut off about an inch of bread from each end of the loaf and then biversect it, separating the top from the bottom. Sprinkle about one-third of the cheese on the bottom of the loaf and the rest on the cut side (inside) of the top. Put the meat mixture on the bottom half and spread it around. Carefully – or not, if you like sweeping up cheese – turn the top over onto the bottom.

Wrap the loaf in heavy-duty foil and bake for 20 minutes in the oven, or just throw it on the grill and close the lid.

Unwrap the loaf and start figuring out how to slice and serve. Enjoy!