Stuffed Peppers Of A Different Sort

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Feta, olives and pesto make up the delectable filling for these stuffed peppers.
Feta, olives and pesto make up the delectable filling for these stuffed peppers.

Take summer bell peppers from supporting players to superstars.

The fruit that we mistakenly think of as a vegetable is so often relegated to a secondary role, cut up for salads, soups, and stir-fries, where it lingers in the background of so many other ingredients.

But “Peppers, Pesto, Feta” shines the spotlight directly on them prominently.

This super easy recipe is from ““Greenfeast: Spring, Summer” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy.

By best-selling food writer Nigel Slater, this is the companion cookbook to his “Greenfeast: Autumn, Winter” (Ten Speed Press), which debuted last year.

Like that book, this one is also vegetarian, comprising 110 no-frills recipes that take the simple approach to highlighting the fresh bounty of spring and summer.

The recipes all take their name from the three ingredients they most highlight. Most of them require only a handful or two of total ingredients, too, many of which you probably already have on hand, to create such delights as a salad of “Bulgar, Nectarines, Parsley,” the contrast of “Eggplant, Honey, Sheep Cheese,” the unique combo of “Green Falafel, Watermelon, Yogurt,” and a jammy compote of “Plums, Cloves, Bay Leaves.”

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Celebrating A Rare Blue Moon

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Adagio's Bella Luna Blue does indeed start out blue, but turns violet when you stir in lemon juice or other acid.
Adagio’s Bella Luna Blue does indeed start out blue, but turns violet when you stir in lemon juice or other acid.

If you’re an astronomy buff — and a tea aficionado — you’ll want to mark Aug. 22 on your calendar.

That’s when a rare Blue Moon will grace the sky.

It’s also the only day that Adagio Teas will be selling its Bella Luna Blue tea blend.

Yes, this special loose leaf tea, which commemorates this cosmic occurrence, is only available when there is a Blue Moon.

It’s a rather magical blend that brews up blue in color. But stir in a little lemon juice to increase the pH, and it will turn vivid violet-purple in a flash. How fun is that?

The herbal tea gets its blue hue from Butterfly Pea flowers. The longer the tea steeps, the deeper the color, too, as you can see from the sample I tried.

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Where I’ve Been Getting Takeout of Late, Part 34

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The butternut squash and salsa verde Milan-style pizza from Pizzone.
The delicata squash and salsa verde Milan-style pizza from Pizzone.

Pizzone, Palo Alto

Let’s start by saying that I’ve never paid nearly $70 for one pizza before ($69.90 to be exact).

But Pizzone’s pie is unlike most.

For one thing, it’s a massive 18-inches in diameter and 1-inch thick all around.

It’s also Milan-style, meaning that it’s airy, soft, fluffy, and more like focaccia.

Milan-native Dario Presezzi, founder and CEO of Redwood City’s Biotechforce Corp., put his entrepreneurial skills to use in a different way this summer when he opened this ghost kitchen inside of Palo Alto’s Vina Enoteca.

That means it’s pick-up and delivery only. And if you pick it up yourself, just note that you do so at a side door just to the left of Vina Enoteca’s main entrance.

By the time you get the pizza home, the cheese may have congealed just a bit, so you can rewarm it in the oven or zap it in the microwave for the briefest of seconds.

The whole pie.
The whole pie.

The pizza comes either in a box of two slices ($9.90 to $11.90, depending on the toppings) or as a full pizza (12 slices that will serve 6, starting at $54.90). Because the crust is thick, two slices will definitely fill you up comfortably, too.

There are five vegetarian pizzas to choose from, and four meat ones. The beauty of the whole pizza is that you can choose up to six flavors on one pie, which is what I went with.

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Discover “The Well Seasoned Librarian”

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(Image courtesy of Dean Jones)
(Image courtesy of Dean Jones)

Dean Jones is a long-time Bay Area librarian, who also has a deep passion for food and cooking, as well as exploring new restaurants.

Now, he’s cooked up something really irresistible — a new podcast.

In the wittily titled, “The Well Seasoned Librarian” podcast, Jones talks in-depth to cookbook authors, food writers, farmers, bakers, chocolate experts, and culinary historians.

It’s a fun, enlightening, and entertaining time, as I personally discovered when he invited me to be a guest on the show last week.

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Scallion Oil-Poached Chicken

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Classic poached chicken with a vibrant scallion-ginger sauce.
Classic poached chicken with a vibrant scallion-ginger sauce.

Betty Liu makes the rest of us look like slackers.

Not only is she a doctor training to be a surgeon in Boston, but she’s a home-cook so gifted that she created an award-winning food blog, bettysliu.com. Her writing, recipes and photos have appeared in Bon Appetit and Saveur magazines. She’s also taught food photography classes around the world.

On top of that, she debuted this year, the top-selling cookbook, My Shanghai: Recipes and Stories from a City on the Water” (HarperCollins), of which I received a review copy.

My, oh my.

It’s even more impressive when you realize that Liu didn’t even learn to cook until she was in college, and missing her mother’s cooking. Back then, whenever she visited her parents, she cajoled her mother into teaching her how to make her favorite dishes. After college, she worked in Shanghai for a spell, which only deepened her passion for that regional cuisine.

Her cookbook honors her heritage and her family’s cooking, spotlighting the Jiangnan region, which encompasses the lower Yangtzee area, including the city of Shanghai. Not surprisingly, Jiangnan cuisine is all about seasonal fresh ingredients and elevating the natural, pure flavors of the food.

This beautifully illustrated book is complete with lavish photos that bring this region of China to life, as well as useful images that take you step-by-step through specific techniques, including making “Suzhou-Style Mooncakes,” “Scallion Flower Buns,” and “Shanghai Big Wontons.”

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