Improvised Pastas

My favorite food in the whole world is a tomato. They are the one food I cannot live without. Show me a food better than the tomato. Fried corn and tomatoes, bacon and tomatoes: they play very well with others. However, in the summer I eat them like apples; they're perfect by themselves. Sure, they're nightshades, poison to some, very acidic, but I'll never turn my back on them.

I used to hate any tomato-based pasta dish I'd ever make from scratch. The sauce always tasted metallic. Lately, I've been having good luck with little sauces. I'm committed to the idea of making the perfect tomato sauce.

Here are two pasta dishes we've made in the last little while:




All great dishes start out with sauteing onions in olive oil, then adding some garlic and a pesto cube.


I made a big bunch of pesto last summer (minus cheese) and froze it in ice cube trays. I know they've passed their best by date, but I still use them. I have a bag of basil pesto cubes and a bag of arugula pesto cubes. Please try arugula pesto. You're doing yourself a great disservice if you do not.

After the onions soften, then you add whatever other veggies you want (The first dish had spinach, peppers, and chopped canned artichokes), turn the heat up really high so that you get a nice char on everything, then pour in some white wine (In this case, Old Fort White Something-Another from Beans Creek Winery--Spring Break trip with Bethany and Mark 2009!) to deglaze the pan, scrapping up the brown bits. Next, I added a 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes. I boiled up some whole wheat spaghetti and mixed the two together in a big bowl given to me by my sweet sister-in-law as a wedding present. This was very simple and clean tasting...but I wanted more tomato, something more akin to soup than salsa to cover my noodles.

The second dish was a meat sauce made leisurely last Sunday night. I started out by putting 1 lb. of lean ground sirloin and a pesto cube (maybe a tidbit of butter, but who's keeping track?) into my big ol' cast iron dutch oven. I chopped some onions and peppers and added those guys in (don't let 'em get too soft).

A note about the red bell pepper: I simply cannot do without red bell peppers. I hate how expensive they can be, but they are simple pleasures I've found that I cannot live without. Frozen peppers will do at times, but some times I need them crunchy and delectable in their fresh state. I rationalize that I do not spend money on fancy shoes or that pesky (not to mention bland) Banana Republic anymore, so why not?

I added some red pepper flakes, some homemade chili powder, oregano, probably a myriad of other spices I can't remember, and some s & p and let that go for a while. I added some chopped canned artichoke hearts and three cans of tomatoes to get my fix (1 28 oz. can of sauce, 1 28 oz. can of crushed, and 1 14.5 oz. can of fire roasted diced)! I let that come up to a simmer and added a pinch of sugar. The sugar cannot be avoided, mind you (not entirely true--you might be able to figure something out with agave syrup or your favorite sugar substitute). The sweetness from the sugar balances the acidity of the tomatoes. I then added 2 bay leaves and a parm rind from the freezer and let it simmer away for as long as we could wait: about 45 minutes, I'm guessing.

In the meantime, I boiled the pasta water, salted it well (always add more salt than you think is sufficient) and added a box of rigatoni. In a separate pan, I sauteed some cremini mushrooms in 2 tablespoons of butter until all the butter was absorbed. I deglazed the pan with some leftover marsala wine we had for some incredible chicken marsala you'll hear about some day. These mushrooms were incredible. I'd intended to fold them into the sauce, but I didn't want their flavor to get lost in with everything else. So, I poured the mixture into the bottom of my baking dish. When the noodles were done, I poured them in a big bowl and added enough sauce to cover them well. I poured this on top of the layer of mushrooms and topped it with pecorino romano cheese, parm, and skim mozz. I baked it at 450 for 10 minutes and yeah, it was the best so far.

A few interesting bits of info re: at-home pasta goodness:
1. You don't have to spring for the expensive tomatoes. My darling Lynne prefers Hunt's.
2. Trader Joe's never ceases to amaze me. They're dried pasta has proven to be better than many of the more expensive products that get me with the flashy packaging. See this article. Thanks for the info Claudia/Lesley.

Also, I'm in the midst of a culinary love affair with Ina Garten! I once counted her a nemesis with her condescending descriptors of "good olive oil," etc. Now I know what it's all about: more details to come, maybe.

Please stop, Ina. That's tacky. I'm a married woman.

Steak & Peanut Butter

My mentor teacher was so excited when she saw my lunch the other day. She exclaimed, "Oh, that looks and smells so good. Is it pot roast?" No, I tell her, it's steak and peanut butter. I realize that sounds kinda gross and she immediately becomes uninterested. I didn't mean it that way, but it's true. It is steak and peanut butter and it's pretty good.

With my teaching responsibilities dying down, I've come back to recipe reading. I couldn't be more pleased because for a while I thought I might never be inspired by cooking again.

I do think it was a good experience to learn how to cook like "real people" with simple no-nonsense recipes for chicken breasts and a requisite rice cooker (I love this appliance...a wedding gift from Sandy Sprankles--my favorite name ever. It automatically shifts itself to warm once the rice is cooked. You don't have to watch it or time it).

I found this recipe in an old issue of Everyday Food.

Skirt Steak & Bok Choy Stir-Fry

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 tablespoon honey
2 garlic cloves, minced
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 pound skirt steak, thinly sliced crosswise
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 large head bok choy, cut 1 inch thick crosswise
4 medium carrots, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced on bias
cooked rice, for serving (We had brown rice seasoned with Asian garlic and chili paste)
1/4 cup peanuts, chopped

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, mix soy sauce, vinegar, peanut butter, honey, and garlic; season with pepper.
2. In a bowl, toss steak with cornstarch; season with salt and pepper. In a large nonstick skillet with a lid, heat oil over medium-high. Add 1/2 of steak; cook, tossing, until browned, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate; repeat with remaining steak.
3. To skillet, add soy mixture, bok choy, and carrots. Cover and cook, tossing occasionally until tender, about 5 minutes. Return steak to skillet; cook until heated through, about 5 minutes. Serve over rice; sprinkle with peanuts.

I loooooove bok choy. The spines are very celery-like in texture, but without the acrid taste of actual celery. I kind of freaked out when I realized the stir-fry to sauce ratio and doubled the sauce. I do not think this was a wise decision. It was still really good, but I think the flavors would have been more subtle and less peanut butter and steak if I'd had some patience and taken into account that the bok choy would obviously wilt down.

This reaction came from my experience with recipes from the Everyday Food magazine. I absolutely adore this publication, but it's mostly for the stylistic elements of it. The photography charms the pants off me, but the recipes are very simple and sometimes I wonder why they take up space with the repeated information (I've been a subscriber for a little too long, but you let an issue show up late and I'm calling their customer service department immediately).

Sometimes simplicity is best, but I adhere to the advice of Bobby Flay (I can't believe I'm invoking his name; I can't stand to see or hear him. I will not tell you what I think he looks like.): cook it less and season it more.

We also had some lovely Asian Cabbage Slaw (also from Everyday Food):


Ingredients:
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 milliliters rice vinegar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
2 teaspoons sugar
Salt
1/2 small head shredded Savoy or green cabbage (I used green)
1 cup fresh cilantro leaves
4 scallions, cut into matchsticks
1 grated carrot
1/2 fresh jalapeno, minced

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, 2 tablespoons rice vinegar, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, and 2 teaspoons sugar; season with salt and whisk. To dressing, add 1/2 small head shredded Savoy or green cabbage, 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, 4 scallions, cut into matchsticks, 1 grated carrot, and 1/2 fresh jalapeno, minced, and toss to combine.

This was delectable...and only gets better with age. I adore raw cabbage. Pickled foods like this are good for digestion. The macros have a dish like this with every meal.

Summertime...and the livin' is easy

Here are the cupcakes I made for my last day of student teaching. These were exclusive cupcakes made for my mentor teacher and other folks at the school who kept me alive (mainly the school librarian--she was indispensable). Now I'm on to a full-on job search and packing. We will soon be leaving South Nashville for our new digs in the East (fingers crossed tightly).

The cupcakes are a version of my very favorite cake recipe from Anne Byrn. I've made this cake so many times for so many people. It's super easy and a real treat. I generally don't care for desserts, but this cake is an exception.

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake ingredients:
1 package (18.25 oz) plain white cake mix (do not get super moist varieties)
1 package (3 oz.) strawberry gelatin (this makes the cake non-vegetarian friendly)
1 c. mashed fresh strawberries with juice
1 c. veg oil
1/2 c. whole milk
4 large eggs
1 c. sweetened coconut
1/2 c. chopped pecans

Frosting ingredients:
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, at room temp
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temp
3.5 c. confectioners' sugar
3/4 c. mashed and drained strawberries
1/2 c. coconut
1/2 c. chopped pecans

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray your pans with Pam.
2. Mix cake mix, strawberry gelatin, strawberries, oil, milk, and eggs for a couple of minutes until well blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl every once in a while.
3. Add coconut and pecans.
4. Pour into cake pans (3 9-inch round pans)
5. Bake 28-30 minutes until a toothpick, when inserted into the cake, comes out clean.

Make frosting:
1. Cream the butter and cream cheese.
2. Slowly add confectioners sugar until it's all combined.
3. Fold in pecans and coconut.

There you are...best ever strawberry cake. Blue Ribbon worthy.

Meat + Dutch Oven: A Long Term Vision Is Realized

a Mark post

I had a dream, that one day we would take a piece of meat, and cook it in the cast-iron dutch oven.

That's it. And, full disclosure, we have done that before. However, this craving for meat to be cooked in the dutch oven could not be denied, and I finally talked Wendy into the idea. Of course, she made it a more complete thought than my primordial "meat in pot... make good", and so we decided on a pulled pork sandwich from Simply Recipes.

What appealed to us about this particular recipe is that we make a sauce for the meat to marinate overnight, which later mixes with the juices of the meat while it cooks and becomes the sauce for the final product. And the vision played out as I expected: we simply put the meat in the dutch oven with the marinade over night, pulled it out the next day and cooked it on the stove eye, removed the meat to pull it, then added it back to the pot after letting the sauce reduce.

Pull that meat!


Add it back to the reduced sauce.

We served the BBQ on those little Hawaiian rolls, like sliders. We also made some great collard greens and mustard slaw.


A complete plate.


Gnocci thinks she wants some.


Seasoning for the greens.


Greens close up.

Condiments, Cookies, & Cats

We thoroughly cleaned out our fridge a couple of weeks ago. That is, we threw out the squirt bottle of caramel ice cream topping we moved from Murfreesboro with three years ago...that is to say it was a thorough cleaning. The fridge is so clean that every time I open it, I holler out, "Mark, we got a show fridge."

I like grocery lists because I think they're succinct little character sketches. I've recently seen a few folks posting pictures of their fridges in a similar sort of spirit.

When I look at this photo I realize just how much I've cut back on the recreational mustard collection I strove to cultivate. Ah me...getting old already.


Highlights include Pea Soup (to be discussed at a later date), homemade chicken broth, Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper (sweet chemicals needed for survival), several tubs of TJ's hummus/dips, and some homemade cookies and Parmesan crisps chillin' in sleeves of parchment paper.

The cookies were for my niece, Kelley, as we weren't able to attend her 11th B-day party. They were a lovely recipe from Dorie Greenspan: Coconut-Lime Shortbread.

I opted for pistachios.

& obligatory cat shots:

Xena = a Nautilus


You can't really tell in this picture, but she's hugged up to a catnip filled cat cigar. Mark kinda staged this, I think. This is his cat/squirrel, after all.

At-Home Indian Food, Part I

Vegetarian Times inspired us to finally try and create some Indian cuisine that went beyond microwave papadum and homemade naan.

We actually made the entire magazine spread minus the chutneys. As I've mentioned before, we're fortunate enough to live next door to an Indian grocery. Usually, I go alone and peruse the aisles as mere entertainment. But since I had a recipe in mind, I brought Mark along to help me find everything. However, another shopper, with his young son in tow, (almost excitedly, actually) stopped his shopping to help us find many of the ingredients.

Mark was immediately drawn to the lentil pancakes, so we prepped those first as they needed to stay in the fridge overnight. I was so surprised that we were able to puree the lentil and rice mixture without cooking it at all.

Here are the lovely toppings:

Peas, jalapeno, red onion, and cilantro

We cooked them up on our cast iron griddle:


My favorite dish of the night was the Lemon Rasam soup:

not the best picture in the world, but it'll do.


Chiles, curry leaves, mustard seeds in ghee

We made a vegetable curry as well, but it didn't rock my socks or anything. I've proven not to be the biggest coconut milk fan, sadly.

We made this spread more than a month ago. I'm still playing catch up. This second student teaching placement is less hectic, but I'm knee deep in a job search as well as a newly initiated house search. We're hoping to find a nice cheap house so that we have enough money leftover for a tandoori oven...not really. I guess it'd be a little silly to make a clay oven top priority these days.

Bonus India-related tid-bit: my lovely little sister-in-law is studying in India this semester and she's learned how to dance the Kuchipudi. We're real proud of this little gal. She's the one in the red (not fuchsia) on the right. (It takes the video a minute to start up.)

Hey Stranger

We've cooked minimally in the last couple of months. I've been playing a teacher, which has worked out well for me, I'd say...though I cannot go into specifics right now. I have been sad to have to relinquish my cooking habit, but the payoff may be worth it. Generally, I cook for therapy, but it is possible, I'm now convinced, that teaching is my new therapy. It's a calling, that's for sure.

For now, I cook on Saturdays, if I have the energy to look something up.

On a lazy Hills-soaked Saturday night a month or so ago, we made this:

Chicken Sausage Farro Soup

We got the Cilantro Chicken Sausage from Trader Joe's. This soup was good, better on the reheat if you ask me (as you know, most soups are). I loved the texture of the farro: chewy goodness. The collard spines were crunchy and delectable as I like them. I would recommend this soup if you're into sausage + curry. The flavor and textures were too much for me, though.

We also made a tomato soup, which was good, but not remarkable.

I made the croutons with some Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Sourdough cut into cubes, tossed with olive oil, and a good shake of Sicilian oregano (from Lazzaroli's).



Shameless Self-Promotion: please do check out my Middle School Blog as I'm really intrigued by my thought processes those days as I'm now working with kids of this age group.