A Delicious, Easy Recipe

Chinese Broccoli with Sausage and PolentaI made this for dinner last week, and as it is super easy and really good, I thought I would share the recipe with you. I made a couple of adjustments though: instead of chinese broccoli, I used broccolini, and I also substituted chicken sausage for the pork to make it a little less fatty. So here's the recipe, courtesy of Epicurious.com:

Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 45 min

Servings: Makes 6 servings.

Ingredients
2 lb Chinese broccoli, thick ends trimmed

For polenta
6 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups polenta (not instant) or yellow cornmeal
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons finely grated parmesan

For sausage and garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 lb hot Italian sausage, casings removed
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Preparation

Cook broccoli:
Cut broccoli stems diagonally into 1-inch pieces and coarsely chop leaves. Cook stems in a large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, about4 minutes. Stir in leaves and cook 1 minute. Drain in a colander, then rinse under cold water to stop cooking. Do not squeeze out excess water.

Cook polenta:
Bring water with salt to a boil in a 3-quart heavy saucepan, then add polenta in a thin stream, whisking constantly. Cook over moderate heat, whisking, 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low and simmer polenta, covered, stirring for 1 minute after every 10 minutes of cooking, 45 minutes total. Stir in butter, cream, and cheese and remove from heat.

Sauté sausage and garlic while polenta cooks:
Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté sausage, stirring and breaking up meat into large pieces with a spoon, until browned and cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a plate. Reduce heat to moderate, then cook garlic in skillet, stirring, until golden, about 2 minutes.

Add broccoli and cook, stirring and scraping up brown bits from bottom of skillet, 2 minutes. Return sausage to skillet and toss with greens, salt, and pepper. Serve over polenta.

--Gourmet | February 2003

Escape From New York

It's kind of like the Soup Nazi of Portland. No cell phones, cash only, and occasionally, attitude. But damn, the pizza's good.

I feel it's time I wrote a review of my neighborhood pizza joint, Escape From New York. High time, in fact. Long overdue. I've been going there for the last couple of years. Nothing fancy, they usually have 3 or four options: always pepperoni, always cheese, and usually a mushroom or olive variety (tonight it was a mix), and occasionally one other, sometimes with meat, usually not, though. Supposedly, it's a lot like the pizza you would actually get in New York City. I've only had pizza in New York City once or twice, and neither time it was like Escape's, but I have a feeling I didn't go to an authentic place. Whatever.

At Escape From New York, the pizza is floppy and traditional; you won't find goat cheese or barbeque chicken here. It's pepperoni, cheese, sausage, peppers, etc. You get the idea. I've tried pepperoni (numerous times), Hawaiian, mushroom/olive variety, and a veggie combo. All were good. Many people love the plain old cheese, but I've never tried it. The atmosphere of the place (although I've never actually eaten my pizza there) is classic. Really, for whatever reason, it reminds me of high school. If I had known how to drive when I was in high school, this totally would have been my place (I frequented Oasis on Hawthorne, and the now-defunct Famous Bobs at that point in time). Also, somehow, it reminds me of the 80's. I love it.

You will often get a healthy dose of attitude here: once, I realized at 10:00 p.m. that I hadn't had dinner yet, and pizza sounded great, so I called to make sure that they were still open. Their reply: "Yeah, we're still open. We're open until eleven." As in duh, I should have known.

I think they recognize me there. I like that. It makes me feel like a regular, like I live in a real city.
As a sidenote, beer, wine, soda, and Manhattans go much better with the pizza than martinis. I found that out tonight. So, unless you are from the suburbs, I highly encourage you to frequent Escape From New York. It makes me happy.