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♪♪
(Giada) Doesn't that look pretty?
Colorful, that's what I love.
Super yummy.
Weeknights are busy, but I have some ideas
that can help get dinner on the table in no time.
Calabrian chili pasta--
a one-pot wonder.
Each bite offers a burst of spicy flavor.
Red snapper open faced sandwiches--
crispy fillets topped with a zesty spread
and peppery arugula.
Kale and hummus salad--
layers of texture and flavor.
Tuscan greens with a Middle Eastern twist.
Easy Bananas Foster--
my spin on a famous New Orleans dessert.
Gooey, sweet, and impossible to resist.
Quick and easy recipes your family will love.
♪♪
♪♪
I'm starting with my Calabrian chili paste pasta,
and I'm making it all in one pot,
so it's gonna be quick and super easy.
We're gonna start by adding 2 teaspoons of salt.
We're not cooking the pasta in very much water,
so you wanna make sure you don't over-salt it,
'cause it's gonna evaporate into the pasta,
and you don't want the pasta to be too salty.
So...we're cooking the pasta
in an inch of water in a high-sided skillet.
It's 4 cups of water.
Usually, when I cook pasta,
or penne, a short pasta, I cook it in about
8 cups of water, so it's half the amount of water,
and believe it or not, it's gonna absorb all of the water,
and...
it's gonna cook perfectly.
And I know it sounds kinda weird, especially for an Italian,
to make pasta in not a lot of water, but actually,
it works beautifully, and I do owe it
to Mr. Alton Brown, who taught me
that this actually works, and when I'm cooking really fast
and something quick and easy and I want to make it all one pot
and I don't want to clean up a lot of extra stuff,
this makes a very easy dinner.
So while that cooks, I am going
to quarter my cherry tomatoes.
So this pasta is made of cherry tomatoes, some chives,
come Calabrian chili paste, which is super spicy,
so if you're making this for kids,
I would sort of avoid the Calabrian chili paste,
'cause it's incredibly spicy but incredibly delicious.
And these are large cherry tomatoes,
but you could use whatever cherry tomatoes you find.
The sweetness of the cherry tomatoes is really nice
with the heat of the Calabrian chili paste.
Next...we're gonna chop some chives.
So as you can see, I've picked ingredients that work really well together
and are very colorful to create a really beautiful-looking pasta
that you can make really fast.
As always, I eat with my eyes first, so I want things to look
really, really, really pretty.
Chop up all the chives for a nice mild, onion flavor.
And we'll leave this up here, because we have to--we're gonna
add it all to the pot once the penne are actually cooked.
Perfect.
Now, let's grab some pecorino.
Cheese is a big part of this pasta.
♪♪
And now let's check our pasta.
Pasta is done.
Mm, perfect.
Okay, there's gonna be a little bit of water just left on the bottom,
which you need to create a little sauce.
And I add 1 cup of pecorino romano,
and pecorino's made from sheep's milk.
It has a bit of a spicier, saltier bite to it.
Toss, toss, toss, till the cheese is melted on the pasta.
And I like to start with the cheese so that the rest of the ingredients
kinda stick to the cheese and stick to the pasta and it creates a nice little sauce.
Okay, time for everything else.
We're gonna add all of the tomatoes.
The heat of the, uh, pasta in the pan
kinda heats through the tomatoes, but still, you're gonna have
a little bit of that crunch from fresh tomato.
We're gonna add
3 tablespoons of Calabrian chili paste.
It's Calabrian hot chilies.
They're turned into a paste with a tiny bit of vinegar and salt.
It's pretty basic, but it's really spicy.
When you take your first bite, you probably won't notice it's super spicy,
but as you eat a little bit more of it,
it slowly releases a sweet and spicy flavor,
which I think is really quite delicious.
There we go.
All right.
Next, we're gonna zest a lemon.
A little citrus to kinda
bring out the flavor of the chili paste.
We're also gonna juice half of a lemon.
♪♪
And creates a little bit more moisture, too.
And now, last but not least, we're gonna need
1/3 of a cup of extra *** olive oil.
Again, creating a little bit of a sauce.
And now we toss all together.
Make sure that all of the pasta is coated in the Calabrian chili paste.
Honestly, it's one of my favorite new ingredients.
And it creates a nice little creamy sauce.
Okay.
Now...the best part--
goin' in to taste it all.
♪♪
The tomatoes-- still slightly fresh.
You get a little bit of a crunch from it.
It's spicy but not overly spicy.
Creamy, cheesy,
absolutely perfect.
All right, up next we're gonna make
red snapper open faced sandwiches.
Golden fillets, greens, and a zesty spread
make this a weeknight favorite.
♪♪
So it's time to make my red snapper open faced sandwich.
And, um, this is a really fun layered sandwich,
um, fish sandwich, with a nice, crispy crust on the outside of the fish,
which happens to be one of Jade's favorites lately.
So it's super fun.
All right, so I'm gonna add 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander
to the superfine flour.
It's the kind of flour that dissolves very easily
in any kind of moisture, so it creates this really light,
crispy crust on the outside of the fish.
And then to flavor it, we're adding a little bit of coriander,
and coriander, um, is a ground seed, and it's the same plant
that you get cilantro from-- the leaves.
So it kinda has that same sort of
warming flavor, which is really nice on the fish.
A little bit of salt.
This is our breading, basically.
All right, so let's grab our red snapper fillets.
They look really pretty.
♪♪
I got these really great red snapper fillets,
um, at the store today.
I love red snapper, 'cause it's nice and meaty but yet still flaky and light.
So it's perfect.
I'm gonna start heating up my pan with a little bit of olive oil,
so the pan's nice and hot when we get the fish in there.
And you wanna grab
the red snapper fillets and just dust them
with a little bit of flour.
I had the fishmonger take the skin off.
I think it's better without it, especially if you're cutting
into a sandwich-- you don't want to have to worry about the skin.
So we're just gonna give it a quick dusting
of the flour and coriander.
The flour really does help to create a little coating for the fish
so that it can kinda stay intact.
Let's put it directly into the pan.
So it's gonna cook about 3 minutes on one side
and then, like, 1 minute, 1 minute and 1/2 on the other.
Which is why I love working with fillet of fish,
because it cooks that fast, lickety-split.
All right, so now for the yogurt sauce.
What we're gonna do is we're basically gonna use
the food processor and make this great little yogurt sauce.
We're gonna use 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt.
Nice and thick, and it's really yummy with the fish.
The tang from Greek yogurt with, um, with fish is really nice.
So I guess it would be instead of adding mayonnaise,
but it adds a lot more flavor than that.
Next we're gonna add some cumin,
and...ahhh, I love the smell of cumin.
Warm and citrusy
and slightly peppery, but not--
not a hot pepper, just a warming pepper.
And we're gonna do 1/4 teaspoon of ground cumin.
Next, a little bit of freshness
from some fresh flat-leaf parsley.
There we go.
And we're gonna zest
and juice 1/2 a lemon-- so we're just gonna
zest the lemon and kind of just brighten up the flavors.
Lemon and fish-- perfect pairing.
Zest is in.
We're also gonna juice half of a lemon, and then we'll use the other half
for the arugula that goes on top of the fish sandwich.
A little bit of salt
and a little bit of pepper
and a little bit of olive oil,
right in there just to kind of loosen it up a little bit.
And now, we're gonna whip this all together.
[food processor whirring]
Ah, smells good.
Let's just taste it to make sure the seasoning's right.
Mm, good.
It's nice and tangy.
Mm! I love that.
So let's just flip our fish.
Nice, golden brown color, as you can see.
I love fish that has
a really nice crust on it-- there's nothing like it.
So now...
let's just grab...
our bread and our arugula...
and our plate.
We'll grab one piece of bread.
So I just have some country-style white bread that I sliced.
I put a little olive oil, and I grilled it,
just to warm it through and create a little bit of a crust to hold the fish,
and plus, it creates a little crunch, which I really like on a sandwich.
We're gonna just add a little bit
of this yogurt sauce right on top of the bread.
And then we're gonna grab the fish,
and we're gonna put it
right over the bread.
And then we're gonna add a little more Greek yogurt on top.
The Greek yogurt gets warmed on top of the fish, just like that.
Then I take some baby arugula, 'cause it also makes it more colorful,
and I just kind of put it right on top like a real sandwich.
Then what I like to do is take
two little cherry tomatoes,
quarter the tomatoes.
I like to add the color combo,
so when I find different color cherry tomatoes, I like to use them.
If not, just red is perfectly fine.
There we go, and doesn't that look pretty?
Colorful, that's what I love.
And then I just sprinkle the top with the remaining lemon juice
to kind of brighten up all the flavors, season the arugula and the tomato,
and, of course, on the fresh, hot fish.
Now...
time to dig in.
Just kinda cut it up.
Take a piece.
One of my favorite quick fish dishes.
Up next, my kale and hummus salad.
Tuscan kale tossed
in a luxurious homemade dressing.
I just started to make some garlic oil
for my Tuscan and hummus salad,
and for that, all I did was use
1/3 of a cup of olive oil and added 1 garlic clove
that I just smashed and peeled and left it whole,
and then you bring it up to a simmer
and then turn off the heat, and the garlic oil
is basically gonna infuse in the dressing.
So we're gonna start with the dressing now.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna start with a little bit of tahini.
And tahini looks like peanut butter or almond butter
except it has a softer texture to it.
We're gonna do 3 tablespoons.
And tahini is just sesame seeds and olive oil ground together.
It's really good.
You'll find it in a lot of hummus,
and it's used a lot in Middle Eastern food.
There we go.
Next, we are going to add some lemon juice.
So I'm just gonna roll the lemon,
and we're gonna juice
a whole lemon in here.
It's the citrus with the sesame seeds and the olive oil
that really give hummus that great flavor.
So now let's give this a quick little mix,
and then we'll add the olive oil that's been infused with the garlic.
It creates like a little paste,
so the tahini absorbs the, uh, lemon juice.
So let's see-- you wanna just let it cool.
There we go.
So it's cool now, and we'll add it right in there.
Nice and rich.
Okay.
And then, we're just gonna whisk all of the ingredients together
till they get a nice, smooth consistency,
and the tahini will absorb the olive oil and the citrus.
It's a very rich dressing that just makes this really elegant.
And we're gonna add a little bit of salt,
kinda season the dressing a little bit.
All right.
So the dressing is made, very simple.
Time for the kale and the garbanzo beans.
So we're gonna start with the kale,
and what I did was get these Tuscan kale,
which I really like, 'cause it's nice and hardy.
I like the vibrant green color.
You can use whatever kale you can find.
Basically, this is the kind of kale you'll find in Italy,
and I just think it's delicious raw
with a little bit of the tahini and the lemon, it kinda softens the leaves,
and it makes it a super yummy salad.
So this is kind of a deconstructed hummus, really,
because we're gonna leave the garbanzo beans whole, where usually they're pureed,
and make the dressing from what you usually find in the hummus,
which is the tahini,
and then we're adding some kale
just for added texture and to really turn it into a salad.
And it's one of my favorites these days.
It's super fun and very, very easy to make.
Perfect.
So now, we'll get the kale right into the bowl, and look how pretty that looks.
And these days, you'll find kale on just about every restaurant menu.
We're also gonna add all the garbanzo beans right on top.
Makes it very easy to make this salad.
We're gonna grab some spoons and start tossing-- you wanna coat the kale
and the garbanzo beans with a little bit of the dressing.
Doesn't it look pretty?
This is a great salad to make ahead
and just kinda let it sit in the tahini dressing.
Mm.
Smells like roasted garlic in there--smells really good.
Next, we're gonna continue
by adding some shredded rotisserie chicken.
So you just go to the grocery store and get some chicken and just shred it up.
Feels like more of a meal.
And a little bit of sweetness, 'cause I like dried cranberries,
so a little bit of sweetness from 1/2 cup of dried cranberries.
Mmmm.
Toss that together.
You can see how this makes for a really great salad.
And then, to top it all off,
I'm gonna add...
a little spice that...
spice mix that I've never used before, but it's called za'atar,
and za'atar is a Middle Eastern spice that's a mixture
of sesame seeds, thyme, marjoram, and a little sumac,
and sumac is a Middle Eastern berry that they grind up
and mix to make za'atar,
and it's sort of, um, warm and a little citrusy.
And now...
take these out
and try my beautiful salad.
So good.
Creamy from the tahini.
Nice bite from the kale
and the garbanzo beans.
Super yummy.
Okay, up next,
we're gonna move from salad to dessert
with my Bananas Foster.
Sweet decadence.
My twist on a Southern favorite.
♪♪
Time to make some Bananas Foster,
and I'm gonna start with 2 tablespoons of butter.
We wanna melt the butter.
So I'm gonna take 2 bananas,
and we're just gonna slice the bananas.
And, you know, this dessert started in New Orleans
at a restaurant, um, called Brennan's
where, basically, they had too many bananas.
They needed to find a way to use up all the bananas,
and I think it's one of those classic desserts that everybody loves,
but today, we are going to make a *** version
of this Bananas Foster-- usually you'll see that it's got
banana liqueur and/or rum.
We're gonna do it without the banana liqueur and without the rum
but with lots of dulce de leche and butter and chocolate chips,
and I promise you, it is heavenly.
Jade happens to love it,
and I think, just like any parent,
when you have small children, you've got a lot of bananas left over.
So just slice all the bananas, and you can use ripe bananas,
just be careful if they're too ripe, because they tend to sort of
otherwise fall apart in the pan.
[sizzling]
So we've got all our sliced bananas.
Let's take a look at our butter.
Just make sure it's melted nicely.
You wanna get it slightly browned,
and I like to make these in a nonstick pan,
so that way you know the bananas don't stick to the pan at all.
Kinda guarantees it.
So we're just gonna put the bananas right in the pan.
The secret to getting the brownness on the banana is to make sure
the bananas are an even layer in the butter.
So while this browns, let's grab some cinnamon.
So what we're gonna do is flip the bananas
and then we're gonna sprinkle a little cinnamon just to get 'em nice
and, um, and kind of give it a little warmth and a little sweetness.
What you wanna do is just flip all the bananas.
You want a nice, golden color on them.
Butter browns pretty quickly, so you kinda have to watch these.
They go really quick.
Awesome, all right.
So now we're gonna sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon right over the top.
Mm, cinnamon, bananas, butter...
oh, yeah.
♪♪
All right, so I've got some vanilla ice cream.
Let's grab my ice cream scoop
and my little bowl here,
but before I start scooping it,
I wanna add the dulce de leche
right over the top.
So I'm using jarred dulce de leche, about 1 cup or so,
and allow it to melt all over the bananas,
and dulce de leche is like a caramel sauce, and then it's--
um, they add some condensed milk to it, and it's super, super yummy.
So as that's melting, let's start with the ice cream.
We are going to...
just scoop a little bit of ice cream--do another scoop.
Look at that.
We've got our ice cream.
Now what we're gonna do
is take a spoon and start spooning
the dulce de leche right over the top.
Take the bananas and all of
that yummy goodness
and spoon it right over...
yeah, baby!
Over the ice cream, just like that,
and then I top it with a bunch of chocolate chips,
and honestly...
I don't know if you can get better than this
as a quick and easy dessert.
Full of flavor.
♪♪
[chuckles] Thick, creamy...
perfectly sweet.
A quick, easy,
absolute fantastic indulgence.
I love it.
♪♪