Heirloom Tomato and Smoked Mozzarella Salad

The Balsamic Glaze is my new favorite product at Trader Joe's. It's both sweet and vinegary, and adds great flavor to salads, meats, and fruits. I have yet to try balsamic glaze on ice-cream, but apparently it is quite tasty. After a busy week with school starting at KIPP and Brent adjusting to his new job at Focusrite, we decided to spend Friday night at home. I prepared grilled chicken and made this salad with our farm box ingredients. The salad was so simple to build, highlighted the fresh produce, and looked so elegant. To prepare the salad, slice a few fresh heirloom tomatoes, the top them with smoked mozzarella and avocado. Next, sprinkle the salad with julienned basil leave, drizzle white truffle oil and balsamic glaze and last add a pinch of salt and pepper.

Ingredients:
2 Heirloom Tomatoes, sliced
6-8 ounces Smoked Mozzarella, sliced
1 avocado, sliced
A few leaves of basil, julienned
Balsamic Glaze
White Truffle or Extra Virgin Olive Oil
A pinch of salt and pepper

Toasted Ravioli

My KIPP carpool buddy Alaina Pariano and I celebrated the end of our first week of school with a Friday night wine and cooking party. We embraced Alaina's Italian roots with her family recipes. The menu consisted of salad with homemade dressing and croutons, toasted ravioli, moscato wine and pear crisp. I'm not sure how Italian pear crisp is, but we had an entire crate left over at school and hated the thought of them going to waste. Alaina is such a talented cook, so I forced her to create her own blog. I'll be posting her link soon! She was kind enough to allow me to post this recipe. I feel like I am plagiarizing by posting it, so I want to make it perfectly clear that this is her recipe and it is OH so good. The cooking time might need to be adjusted based on your oven. Just make sure the ravioli get puffy and crunchy. We're not looking for soggy ravioli, rather a crisp texture. These can be served as a main dish or as an appetizer. Next cooking party will be Mexican themed with margaritas!

Ingredients:
1 can evaporated milk
1 cup Italian-style bread crumbs
24 fresh bite-size ravioli, thawed if frozen
Extra Virgin Olive Oil for drizzling
Freshly grated Parmesan
1 1/2 cups of your favorite marinara sauce

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Pour the evaporated milk in a bowl. Put bread crumbs in another bowl. Dip ravioli in milk mixture, and coat with breadcrumbs. You really have to push the breadcrumbs down onto the ravioli so they stick. Drizzle with olive oil, and bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Use tongs to flip, and bake for another 12-15 minutes. While the ravioli are toasting, in a small saucepan heat sauce over moderate heat until hot and keep warm, covered. Transfer hot ravioli to a platter and sprinkle with Parmesan.
Serve ravioli with warm marinara sauce for dipping.

Fig and Prosciutto Flatbread

Kerri inspired my love for the combination of figs and prosciutto when she hosted pizza and game night back in April. I decided to experiment with the sweet and savory combination, and recently I blogged a dried fig jam recipe with the intention of using it as a substitute for pizza sauce.  This elegant flatbread recipe requires no measuring, and can be made simpler with store bought fig jam and pizza dough. Oh, and although Brent was not a fan of dried fig jam by itself, he loved this pizza!

Ingredients:
Pizza dough
Olive Oil
Fig Jam
Kosher Salt To Taste
Fresh Mozzarella, Sliced Thin
Thinly Sliced Prosciutto
Washed And Rinsed Arugula
Freshly Ground Pepper, to taste
Parmesan

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 

2. Roll out 1/3 of the pizza dough as thinly as possible. Place on a large baking sheet.

3. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt. Spread fig jam over the surface of the dough. Sprinkle lightly with salt.

4. Lay sliced of mozzarella all over the surface, and top with proscuitto Sprinkle lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until crust is golden and cheese is bubbly. All ovens are different, keep an eye on it!

5. Just before serving, sprinkle on arugula and Parmesan.

6. Cut, serve, and enjoy.

Pomegranate Mango Guacamole

Either Alicia and Jarrod are too nice to lie, or this is good guacamole. Jarrod's delicious homemade flautas worked so well with this guacamole. It created a yummy blend of sweet and spicy. Easy to make. Beautiful colors. Great flavor. What's not to like?

Ingredients:
4 ripe avocados
1 cup finely chopped onion
1-2 fresh jalapenos, finely chopped (depending on how much spice you like)
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (add more if you wish)
1 cup pomegranate seeds (plus some more to add on top of the guacamole)
1 cup diced peeled mango (plus some more to add on top of the guacamole)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste

Directions:
Halve, pit, and peel avocados. Mash in a bowl. Stir in onion, chiles, lime juice, and salt. Gently stir in pomegranate seeds, mango, and cilantro. Season with salt and additional lime juice if you wish.

Prosciutto Wrapped Mozzarella

Charlene and I got this idea when visiting "Ross Rowry" at Papa Razzi in Georgetown. We ordered mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto as an appetizer and were curious to see what we would get, which is retrospect seems funny because the name says it all. As we took our first bite we thought, "This can't be real. So yummy and so simple." On this week's Thursday food fest we decided to recreate that amazing discovery. All you need is mozzarella balls cut up into your desired size, then wrap with a slice of prosciutto. We felt like it wasn't real cooking, so we drizzled olive oil and sprinkled oregano on top to make it feel more fancy. This is the perfect appetizer for a pizza night. It'll be prepared and consumed in the time it takes to bake your pizza! 

Check out thirdculturefoodie's pizza dough recipe here.