Pasta with Spinach, Chickpeas, and Sausage

This is a not-quite-meatless dish. A little bit of meat, in this case some sausage, can add a big dose of flavor. The dish is hearty because of the pasta and the chickpeas, not because of a large portion of meat. Many of us don't want to give up the flavor of meat. Using just a little bit gives the flavor satisfaction at a lower cost and higher sustainability. You win and the planet wins.

Pasta with Spinach, Chickpeas, and Sausage
(serves 4)

2 Tablespoons olive oil + more for garnish
2 cloves garlic, minced
about ⅓ pound flavorful sausage, such as basil or Italian
5 oz. fresh baby spinach, coarsely chopped
2 15 oz. cans of chickpeas
2 Tablespoons minced fresh sage
salt
10 oz. dried orecchiette pasta or some similar frilly shape
black pepper
grated Parmesan cheese

Bring a pot of salted water to boil.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook until no longer pink and starting to brown. While the sausage is cooking, drain the chickpeas, reserving 1 cup of the liquid.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Add the spinach and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the chickpeas, sage, reserved liquid, and ½ teaspoon salt. Cook this while you cook the pasta, which will take about 10-12 minutes. When the pasta is done, drain, and add to the chickpeas. Stir in more salt if needed and cook for another minute. To serve, garnish with a drizzle of olive oil, black pepper, and some grated Parmesan cheese.

Adapted from Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy by Judith Barrett, Rodale, 2004.

Shells with Peppers

A super simple Italian dish for Meatless Monday: pasta shells in a hearty sauce of peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Flavored with some basil and Parmesan cheese. All that there is to it and chock full of delicious veggies.

Pasta Shells with Peppers
(serves 4-5)

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, peeled
1 pound bell peppers (whatever color you like), about 3 medium peppers
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
5 sprigs fresh basil
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Core the peppers and then slice lengthwise. Cut the onion in half, then slice. Pick the leaves off the basil sprigs. Rip or chop the leaves coarsely. Start a large pot of boiling salted water for the pasta.

Heat the oil and butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté onions until golden and no longer crunchy, but not browned. Add the peppers and raise the heat to high. Sauté until the peppers are limp. Turn down the heat to medium-low. Add the tomatoes, basil, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the cover, reduce to low, and continue cooking while you cook the pasta.

By now your pasta water should be boiling. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain the pasta and dump into the skillet. Stir to combine - a large spoon and tongs work better than just a spoon. Then stir in ½ cup of the cheese. Stir gently. Taste for salt; add more if needed. Serve immediately with remaining cheese as garnish.

Adapted from Food alla Florentine by Naomi Barry & Beppe Bellini, Doubleday & Company, 1972.

5 Ingredient Pasta Dinner

Super simple recipe but it illustrates a few things.

• The use of ready-made ingredients, like a commercial pesto, can elevate some simple things to delicious heights and save you a bunch of time.
• In a recipe as simple as this, you have room for improvisation. Instead of chicken, use shrimp or a firm fish that will hold together like mahi-mahi. Instead of artichoke hearts, use cubed summer squash, halved cherry tomatoes, or lightly cooked broccoli.
• Pasta water makes a good thickener for pasta sauces. It helps the sauce stick to the pasta better and stretches out a sauce without thinning it out.

And this whole recipe takes about as long as it takes to boil water and cook pasta.

5* Ingredient Pasta Dinner
(serves 4)

12 oz. chicken breasts
salt and pepper
1 Tablespoon oil
¼ cup white wine (or use broth or water)
8 oz. frozen artichoke heart quarters, thawed
1 pound short pasta such as penne or cavatelli
4 Tablespoons pesto (homemade or commercial)

Start heating up a pot of salted water. Cut the chicken breasts into bite sized pieces and season with salt and pepper. Set aside. Heat a skillet over high heat. Add the oil, then the chicken pieces and sauté. As soon as the water boils, add the pasta and set the timer for 1 minute less than the suggested cooking time (how long depends on the shape). Cook the chicken until browned. Add the wine and scrape up any browned bits and cook until all the liquid has evaporated. Add the artichoke hearts, cover, and turn down the heat to low. When the pasta timer goes off, check to see that it is very nearly done. Scoop off a ½ cup of cooking water, then drain the pasta. Add the pasta, reserved water, and pesto to the skillet. Stir to cover the pasta with the sauce. Check for salt; add more salt if needed. Serve as soon as it is all hot.

*And, yes, I can count. I'm not counting the salt, pepper, or oil because they are pantry items. If I wanted to really push it, I'd say 4 because there is always white wine in my house. :-)

Fresh Chinese Noodles

Curried Chinese Noodles, made with fresh noodles

This is an easy recipe. There are only four ingredients, and one of them is water. It is a recipe that requires work, and I mean physical labor. Good pasta is achieved by kneading and rolling. But, it's worth it. The texture of homemade noodles is just something wonderful. My husband, who is a damn good pasta maker, will gladly go to the trouble of making fresh noodles. That's how good fresh noodles are.

This recipe makes a lot of noodles - 1 ½ pounds. Lucky for you, noodles freeze well. See the instructions on freezing at the end of the recipe. You can go straight from freezer to pot. Use a lot of water so the temperature doesn't drop too much. The noodles will need to cook a little bit longer, but fresh noodles cook so fast, they will still be done faster than dried pasta.

Fresh Chinese Noodles
(makes 1 ½ pounds, 8-12 servings)

3 cups all purpose flour
1 large egg
¾ cup water
2 teaspoons salt

Combine everything in a large bowl. Mix well. If the dough has dry lumps that won't incorporate, add a little bit - like a Tablespoon - of water. If the dough is really sticky, add a little bit more flour. Knead until dough is smooth. This takes a while but it's good exercise. :-) Cut dough into ¼'s. Cover the pieces you haven't rolled yet with plastic wrap. Roll dough as thin as you like. It's going to plump up when you cook it. If you roll it too thick, it will be doughy in the center. Try to go thinner than you want and you'll most likely be pleased with the result. To cut, lightly sprinkle top of pasta sheet with flour, fold up into a package you can cut efficiently with a knife. Folding into ⅓'s or ¼'s works well; for a visual on this check out these photos. Flour any parts that will touch when folded to prevent sticking. Use a sharp knife to cut into strips, like fettuccine. After cutting, fluff up to separate the noodles and flour some more. To cook, drop into boiling water. Cook for 1-2 minutes until al dente. They cook lightning fast, and will go from perfect to mush quickly. Set a timer. Who wants all that hard work to go to waste?

To freeze: dust well with flour and lay flat or arrange into single-serving nests on a pan and place in the freezer. When fully frozen, drop them into a plastic bag and seal tightly. They will keep for a few months in the freezer

Jamie Oliver's Blushing Spaghetti Vongole

A pointer over to my other blog, World on a Platter (a link to it always appears in the right-hand margin on this blog). I'm a volunteer ambassador for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution because I believe in real food. You can read a bit about how I, with my friend Ronnie, started up School of Eating Good on the Food Revolution site. I think Jamie and his organization do great things and I also think Jamie is a masterful chef. He just released a new book: Jamie's Comfort Food filled with comfort food recipes from around the world. There are some fun and exciting things in it, though it's not a beginner cookbook. The Blushing Spaghetti Vongole is one of the simpler recipes, but it does require getting a hold of live clams. Which aren't cheap or easy to find, particularly in landlocked Colorado*. A special meal - when you want to spoil yourself, your loved ones, celebrate something wonderful. That's what the book is about: recipes to treat the ones you love. The ones we love deserve great food and anyone can make it.

*If you live near Boulder, I recommend Pacific Ocean Marketplace on 120th Ave. in Broomfield for live clams and lots of other fishy and Asian things. You will find lots of interesting things there and some of the best deals on produce, anywhere.

Vegetarian Pastitsio

Here's a great tip for the vegetarians out there for adapting the traditional Pastitsio recipe I posted earlier this week. Instead of using 1 pound of ground meat, substitute 1 ½ pounds chopped mushrooms. Mushrooms have a savory flavor and substantial texture, making them a great meat substitute. You won't need to pour off any fat because mushrooms have next to none. In fact, I would increase the olive oil to 4 Tablespoons to make them a bit richer. The rest of the recipe stays the same.

Photo credit: By wikioticsIan (Mushrooms (cremini)) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Pastitsio - Greek Baked Pasta

This is a Greek version of lasagna. It is similar to many Italian versions except:

• It is not made with flat noodles. It's always made with elbow macaroni.
• The red meat sauce, usually lamb but could be beef,  is flavored with cinnamon.
• It isn't heavy on cheese. The richness comes from a cheaters* béchamel, a white sauce made with milk and enriched with eggs.

It is familiar, and yet not. The cinnamon is the secret flavor which makes it totally unlike any Italian lasagna.

This recipe makes a lot. It's rather a production, so that's a good thing. You can freeze it or you can share it with your friends. You can eat it for breakfast, if you like. I have!

Because there are a number of components and steps, it's important to read through the whole recipe to understand what happens when. You want to wait until you are ready to assemble the casserole to cook the pasta. Otherwise, it will be over-cooked and mushy.

Pastitisio

(serves 8-10)

Meat Sauce

½ Tablespoon olive oil

1 pound ground beef or ground lamb, or a combination of the two

1 large onion, chopped

½ cup dry red wine

½ cup tomato sauce

3 Tablespoons tomato paste

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon dried oregano

¾ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained

1 pound elbow macaroni

salt for pasta cooking water

White Sauce

2 Tablespoons butter

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

½ cup cold water

3 cups whole milk

¾ teaspoon salt

4 eggs, beaten in a medium bowl

2 cups grated Parmesan cheese

ground cinnamon for garnish

non-stick cooking spray

Spray a 9"x13" lasagne pan with cooking spray. Set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ground meat and cook until starting to brown. Drain off the fat to leave about 1 Tablespoon. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, under softened. Add the remaining meat sauce ingredients, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until the remaining components are complete. Make sure to taste it for salt. If the sauce is bland, the casserole will be bland, so season well.

While the sauce is simmering, bring a pot of salted water to boil. 

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Dissolve the cornstarch in water. Add the milk, cornstarch, water, and salt to the saucepan. Cook until the sauce starts to thicken, stirring to prevent sticking and scorching. The sauce will not thicken until the milk comes to a boil. Remove the sauce from the heat and pour about 1 cup of it into the beaten eggs, stirring to combine. Then add the rest of the sauce to the eggs, mixing well. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cook the macaroni until just under-done, about 7-8 minutes. Drain well. Place ½ the macaroni in the lasagne pan. Pour the meat sauce evenly over the macaroni. Sprinkle with 1 cup of the grated cheese. Spread on the rest of the macaroni. Pour the white sauce over the pasta, spreading it evenly. Sprinkle with the rest of the cheese and  ground cinnamon. Bake for 45 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes before trying to cut.

Tastes even better reheated the next day.

*It's a cheaters version because a classic béchamel is thickened with a roux, a mix of butter and flour. This one uses cornstarch, which also helps to stabilize the proteins in the eggs, keeping them from scrambling in the hot sauce.

Super Easy Summer Pasta

The green chunks are tomatoes too, a variety called Green Zebra

This is an easy pasta to whip up in under 5 minutes with a few ingredients in your fridge. It uses delicious summer tomatoes, barely cooked to preserve their fresh flavor, and pesto sauce. Mix them with leftover pasta and some mozzarella cheese, heat up a little, and you have a tasty summer dinner.

Ripe Green Zebra tomatoes in my garden. It's been a good year for tomatoes!

Fresh ripe tomatoes in summer are a special treat and I used tomatoes from my garden. I particularly like a variety called Green Zebra which ripens to yellow with green stripes. If you can't find summer ripe tomatoes, chopped up cherry tomatoes anytime of year are your next best choice.

You can use plain ole mozzarella cheese, like what you use on pizza. Or to elevate this to incredible, use fresh mozzarella (which is quite a bit more expensive).

This recipe illustrates how easy it is to take some basic ingredients and make something delicious, really fast. We all have busy lives and if you can throw together simple yet tasty meals on the fly, you're a great cook!

Quick Tomato Pasta
(serves 1, costs $2.80)

1 ½ cups cooked pasta
1 cup of chopped fresh ripe tomatoes
1 ounce of cubed or shredded mozzarella cheese
2 Tablespoons pesto sauce (homemade or supermarket)
salt and pepper
olive oil

In a microwaveable bowl, combine the pasta, tomatoes, cheese, and pesto sauce. Season with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Microwave on high for 1 minutes and serve. Microwave for about another minute until the pasta is hot and the tomatoes are soft. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Drizzle with a little olive oil, if desired.

Stretching Shrimp: Shrimp with Onion, White Beans & Tomatoes over Pasta

Shrimp is not a cheap food. It's not lobster, but it's not exactly budget. Here's a recipe that takes some shrimp and stretches it with some canned white beans. It's based on an Italian dish from Tuscany, though that dish is not a sauce for pasta. I had some feta cheese so I crumbled it on top for garnish. This is a totally un-Italian thing to do. Italians think grated cheese on seafood is sacrilege for the most part (and they certainly wouldn't use feta). Hey, I'm not Italian and it tasted good!

For this dish, you will saute some chopped onions. This is what they will look like when you are ready to proceed to the next step. You don't want them to brown.

The timing in this recipe assumes you are using regular spaghetti, not angel hair. If you substitute another pasta shape, you'll need to tweak the cooking time.

Shrimp with Onion, White Beans & Tomatoes over Pasta

(serves 6, costs $12.65)

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 large pinch crushed red pepper flakes

¾ pound chopped Roma tomatoes or 1 14-oz can chopped tomatoes, undrained

1 15-oz. can white beans, rinsed and drained

½ cup dry vermouth or white wine

1 pound medium to large peeled and deveined shrimp

1 pound spaghetti (whole wheat or regular)

salt

crumbled feta cheese for garnish (optional)

Heat the oil in a large skillet with a cover (see Note) over medium heat. Add the onions and saute for about 5 minutes. While the onions are cooking, get a big pot of water started for the pasta. When the onions are light golden (see picture), add the crushed red pepper, tomatoes, and white beans. Stir and cook until tomatoes start to soften, about 5 minutes. Use a fork or potato masher to break the tomatoes into small pieces.

By now, your pasta water should be boiling. If not, cook the tomatoes until the pasta water does come to a boil. Reduce the heat for the sauce to medium-low. Drop the spaghetti into the boiling water and add 1 teaspoon of salt. Set the timer for 6 minutes. When it goes off, add the vermouth and shrimp to the tomato mixture. Stir and cover the skillet. Set the timer for another 5 minutes.

When the timer goes off again, add about ½ cup of the pasta cooking water to the shrimp and stir. This will make a sauce. If it doesn't seem saucy enough, add some more water; it will thicken up from the starch in the pasta and the beans. Check to see if the spaghetti is done. Continue cooking it another minute or two if it's still crunchy in the middle.  Taste the sauce and add salt if needed (shrimp is fairly salty so you don't need much). Drain the spaghetti and mix with the sauce. Serve with crumbled feta cheese, if desired.

Note: Don't have a cover for your skillet? Use a cookie sheet.

Meatless Monday: Pasta with Cottage Cheese, Basil and Feta

This is a simple uncooked sauce - great for summer. It has basil and garlic, like pesto, but the cheeses are totally different. Cottage cheese gives it volume and feta gives it tang and saltiness. You don't need a food processor to puree it. It's not smooth like pesto. If you want a smoother sauce, you can puree it in the food processor.

In order to eliminate the chunks in the garlic, it's smooshed with the flat side of a knife with salt. The salt acts as an abrasive, grinding up the garlic into a paste. At first, the garlic and the salt don't want to combine, but with a little elbow grease, the garlic and the salt come together.

Pasta with Cottage Cheese, Basil, and Feta Sauce
(serves 4-6, costs $8.60)

3 large cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
2 large pinches salt
½ cup fresh basil, chopped
1 cup lowfat (2%) cottage cheese
½ cup finely crumbled feta cheese, 4 to 5 ounces plus a bit more for garnish
2 Tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 ½ pounds broccoli florets
16 ounces fusilli or rotini

Place a large pot of water over high heat.

Sprinkle the salt over the garlic on a cutting board. With the flat side of a knife, press down and smoosh the garlic and salt together. Keep doing this until the garlic and salt form a smooth paste, using the knife to bring the garlic back into a tight pile periodically. Pile on the chopped basil and chop until the basil is finely chopped and well combined with the garlic paste. Place in a medium bowl. Add the cottage cheese, feta cheese, olive oil, and black pepper. Mix to combine and set aside.

When the water comes to a boil, add the pasta, stir, and set the timer for 5 minutes. When the timer goes off, add the broccoli and set the time for another 5 minutes. Check the pasta when the timer goes off. Cook for 1 more minute if still chewy. Reserve ¼ cup cooking liquid and drain the broccoli and pasta. Place in a large bowl. Pour on the cottage cheese sauce and add the reserved cooking liquid. Toss together to coat the pasta and broccoli. Serve, sprinkling with a little bit more feta cheese, if desired.

Baked Meaty Pasta

Don't you love recipes where you dump the pasta in with everything else, and it magically cooks just right? I do! I used ground bison, you could use any ground meat: beef, lamb, turkey, chicken, even vegetarian "meat." This is extremely simple and extremely satisfying, with a layer of gooey cheese on top. Gets even better on reheating.

This recipe uses homemade creamed spinach, which is easy to make. You make a Bechamel sauce (a milk sauce thickened with butter and flour, one of the classic French sauces) and mix in chopped spinach. You could use a package of frozen creamed spinach, but it's so easy to make your own, why not make it from scratch? Tastes a lot fresher too.

Baked Meaty Pasta
(serves 6-8, costs $9.50, though the cost will vary depending on meat used)

non-stick cooking spray
1 pound ground meat
about 1 teaspoon salt
about ½ teaspoon black pepper
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
½ teaspoon garlic powder
2 Tablespoons dried minced onion
½ teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
2 cups water
8 ounces dry penne, regular or whole-wheat
1 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon flour
1 cup milk (skim, low-fat or whole)
10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (see Note)
4 ounces grated mozzarella cheese, about 1 cup

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a 3 quart baking casserole dish with non-stick baking spray and set aside.

Spray non-stick cooking spray on a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add the ground meat and brown. Break up the big chunks into small pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Add in the tomatoes, garlic powder, dried onion, oregano, basil, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper and water. Stir to combine and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Spoon enough sauce into the baking dish to cover the bottom. Add the penne. Spoon the rest of the sauce over the penne.

In the same skillet that you cooked the sauce in (no need to clean it out), melt the butter. Add the flour and stir to combine. Add the milk, stirring to smooth out the lumps. Cook until the milk thickens. Add the spinach, stirring to combine. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour spinach over sauce. Cover with foil and bake for 30-40 minutes until the casserole is hot and bubbly. Sprinkle on the cheese and return to the oven, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes.

Note: Instead of frozen spinach, you can use a 10 ounce package of fresh baby spinach, coarsely chopped, or 2 cups cooked broccoli. You can even use a combination, which is what I used.

Rice with Spaghetti

One more Cinco de Mayo recipe - rice cooked with fried spaghetti. Angel hair pasta, vermicelli, or fideos (coils of very thin pasta for soup) work best but regular spaghetti is fine too. It's a great way to use up a little bit of spaghetti. The nuttiness of the fried pasta is delicious with the rice, and it gives it a nice texture. This is wonderful under our Cinco de Mayo Chicken.

This is entirely a pantry recipe - it has dried minced onions and garlic powder instead of fresh garlic and onions. If you want to use fresh, add 1 minced clove of garlic and ¼ cup minced onion when you add the rice.

If you prefer, you can use vegetable broth to make this a vegetarian rice.

Rice with Spaghetti
(serves 6, costs $2.25)

1 cup long-grain rice
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup spaghetti pieces
2 ¼ cups chicken stock or vegetable broth, hot
1 Tablespoon dried minced onion
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon salt (optional)

Place the rice in a bowl and cover with hot water. Soak for 5 minutes, pour into a strainer and set aside to drain.

Mix the stock with the onion, garlic powder, and black pepper. If stock is unsalted, add salt.

Heat up a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add oil. The oil should be nearly smoking and shimmer before you add in the pasta. Add the pasta and stir constantly for about 1 ½ to 2 minutes until the pasta is a rich brown. Do not burn - when the pasta is brown, add the rice to slow down the browning. Reduce the heat to medium, add the rice, and stir for about 1 minute. Add the stock (make sure to scrape out the flavorings that may have collected at the bottom), and stir to mix. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let rice sit, covered, for 5 minutes before serving.

Noodles with Mushroom Sauce

Cleaning out the fridge: added sauteed shrimp, roasted asparagus, kimchi, and crispy fried serrano ham

This is a very adaptable recipe. You can eat it as is, noodles with a rich Asian mushroom sauce. Or you can start adding stuff: a fried egg, some kimchi, sauteed shrimp, cubed fried tofu, bamboo shoots, cooked asparagus. Whatever you have in your fridge that you think goes nicely with Asian noodles and mushrooms. That's a pretty wide open category!

The shiitakes are more expensive than button mushrooms, but they have such a meaty texture and flavor that they are a fantastic meat substitute. Look for bargains at your local Asian supermarket, if there are any in your town. Shiitakes are often on sale for the same price as button mushrooms and there are great deals on all sorts of Asian produce. It's always an adventure, going to the big Asian market near me. Not only did I discover the cheap shiitakes last time I was there, I also found their sensational store-made kimchi.

Noodles with Mushroom Sauce
(serves 4; costs $9.70)

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
12 cloves garlic, sliced thin
½ pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, rinsed, stemmed, and sliced thinly
½ pound white button mushrooms, rinsed, and sliced thinly
3 ½ Tablespoons sake or Chinese rice wine
1 bunch of scallions, thinly sliced
12 oz. noodles such as Chinese egg noodles, soba noodles, or whole wheat spaghetti, cooked al dente
3 ½ Tablespoons soy sauce
salt to taste

Heat oil in a large skillet until hot. Add garlic and stir-fry until the garlic is fragrant, about 15 seconds.

Add the shiitakes and button mushrooms and stir-fry for about 2 minutes. Lower the heat to medium-high and add the sake. Cover the pan and cook for another 3-4 minutes until mushrooms are tender. Uncover, add the scallions and any other additions you want and cook for another minute until most of the liquid has cooked off.

Add the noodles and soy sauce and toss to coat. Season with a pinch of salt if needed. The soy sauce is salty but the pasta can soak up quite a bit of salt. Serve. Good with a fried egg on top or with a garnish of kimchi.

Notes: You can cook the mushrooms and toss with the soy sauce but not the noodles if you won't be serving all the noodles at once. Mix ¼ of the cooked noodles with ¼ the mushrooms for each serving. You can mix them all together and eat them over a few meals, but the texture of the noodles is better if you mix them with the mushrooms just before you eat them.

Adapted from Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds.

Meatless Monday: Ligurian Pasta and Beans

I selected this recipe because it is rather unusual. It's not often that you see potatoes, beans, and pasta combined in one dish. Three starchy things that have different textures making for a rustic, hearty dish. This heavy-on-the-carbs combination is popular in Liguria, where they serve pasta with potatoes and pesto. Liguria includes Genoa, home of pesto, as well as Cinque Terre, five lovely towns that hug the coast. It's known for delicious olive oil and a generous hand with many fresh herbs.

This dish also exemplifies much that is beautiful in Italian cuisine. Simple preparation and high quality ingredients make a flavorful dish. Don't substitute dried parsley or rosemary because you need the brightness of the fresh herbs. Though a small bunch of rosemary will run you about $3, don't forget that you can freeze most of it, ready for the next recipe that uses rosemary.

You'll need to plan ahead for this recipe because you must soak the beans before cooking them. You can shorten the soaking by using the quick soak method: bring the beans and water to a boil and boil for 3 minutes (4 minutes if you live at a higher altitude like I do). Turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for 1 hour. The beans will be ready for cooking.

Ligurian Pasta and Cannellini Beans
(serves 4-6, costs $6.50)

1 cup dry cannellini or Great Northern beans
¼ cup olive oil
1 large red onion (about 8 oz.), chopped
1 large pinch crushed red pepper flakes
4 cups vegetable broth
2 medium boiling potatoes (such as Yukon Gold or Red), peeled and diced
8 ounces lasagna noodles, broken into about 1" pieces
1 large clove garlic, minced
8 large sprigs fresh parsley, leaves only, chopped
1 5" sprig fresh rosemary, leaves stripped off the stem and chopped
1 pinch of dried marjoram, crushed
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 oz.)
1 teaspoon salt + more for salting pasta water
½ teaspoon black pepper

Soak the beans in 4 cups cold water for at least 8 hours. Drain and rinse the beans and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion and crushed red pepper flakes. Saute, stirring, for 3 minutes until onions are translucent. Add the soaked beans and the vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the beans are just tender. Add the potatoes and cook for another 15 minutes. At this point, the beans and potatoes should be completely cooked. Remove from the heat and set aside while you cook the pasta.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta pieces, stirring every now and then to keep them from sticking together. Cook for 10-12 minutes until the pasta is al dente - just tender. Drain the pasta and add to the beans. Stir in the garlic, parsley, rosemary, marjoram, cheese, salt, and pepper. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes. Check salt; depending on the saltiness of the broth, you may need more.

(Adapted from Fagioli by Judith Barrett, Rodale 2004.)

Pasta with Mushroom-Tomato Sauce

3/4 ounce dried porcini - not much! But a little goes a long way. 

Besides making spaghetti & meatballs in honor of the romantic dinner in The Lady and The Tramp at my Tuesday night class, we made this vegetarian pasta. Mushrooms have a meaty texture and a rich flavor, so they stand in for meat quite nicely here. We add a small amount of dried wild mushrooms - porcini, specifically - to enhance the flavor even more. The dried porcini are expensive (it was a date night theme, after all) but you don't need much. The flavor they bring is really special. The students thought the pasta smelled and tasted divine. So, for your next splurge, get yourself some dried porcini and make this pasta. If you want to economize, you can make this without the dried mushrooms. Won't be quite as tasty but still good.

We used Baby Bella fresh mushrooms (aka cremini) because they have a deeper flavor but plain white mushrooms will work nearly as well.

Pasta with Mushroom-Tomato Sauce
(serves 4-6, costs $12.50 )

¾ ounce Dried Porcini Mushrooms
1 cup Hot Water

¼ cup Olive Oil

1 clove Garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons Fresh Parsley, chopped (about 4 large sprigs)
1 pound Fresh Mushrooms, cut into a ½" dice
14.5 ounces Diced Canned Tomatoes

½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Black Pepper

2 Tablespoons Butter
½ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese, plus more for garnish
1 pound Cavatappi (corkscrew-shaped), Fusilli or Penne Pasta

2 teaspoon Salt for salting pasta water

Combine dried mushrooms and hot water in a small bowl. Let soak for at least 20 minutes. Remove the mushrooms, squeezing gently to remove some of the water. Moisten a coffee filter or a paper towel. Place the filter in a small strainer over a bowl. Pour the mushroom-soaking liquid into the coffee filter to strain out any grit. Reserve the liquid. Chop the soaked mushrooms and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the parsley, soaked mushrooms, and mushroom-soaking liquid. Cook until all the liquid has evaporated.

Add the fresh mushrooms and cook until they release their liquid and it has evaporated. Add the tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine and cook until the liquid has evaporated. Remove from the heat. Sauce can be made ahead to this point. Reheat while pasta is cooking.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the salt. Drop the pasta in the boiling water and cook until al dente, about 10-12 minutes. Drain the pasta.

Return the sauce to the heat over medium-low. Add the butter, ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, and cooked pasta. Toss to coat and serve with additional Parmesan cheese for garnish.

Adapted from The Classic Pasta Cookbook by Giuliano Hazan, Dorling Kindersley, 1993.

Spaghetti & Meatballs

Penne, spaghetti - fuhgeddeaboudit! They both work. But, you'll need spaghetti to recreate the scene in The Lady and the Tramp.

What's more romantic than a big plate of Spaghetti and Meatballs? "You have a funny sense of romance, lady." Go watch The Lady and the Tramp, that Disney classic, and then tell us Spaghetti and Meatballs isn't romantic. We used a couple of different recipes (including my mom's that I've been eating most of my life) and took the best parts, streamlined them a bit so it's do-able on a weeknight, and voila! You have a romantic meal that's easy to pull off in about an hour, where half the time is enjoying the smell of the sauce simmering away on the stovetop.

Put some Frank Sinatra on, open a bottle of red, and you have yourself one heck of a romantic dinner. And the leftovers are every bit as good.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Spaghetti and Meatballs
(6 servings, costs $11.50)

Meatballs

1 pound Lean Ground Meat (beef, chicken, turkey, veal or some combination of them)
1 clove Garlic, minced

½ cup Dry Breads Crumbs

2 large Eggs

¾ teaspoon Salt

¼ teaspoon Black Pepper

¼ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese

2 Tablespoons Fresh Parsley, chopped (about 4 large sprigs)

½ teaspoon Dried Oregano, crushed in your palm

¼ teaspoon Dried Basil, crushed in your palm

¼ cup Milk


¼ cup Flour

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Sauce

28 ounces canned Diced Tomatoes, undrained

16 ounces Tomato Sauce

1 teaspoon Salt

¼ teaspoon Black Pepper

1 teaspoon Dried Basil

¼ teaspoon Dried Thyme

½ teaspoon Dried Oregano

1 Tablespoon Dried Minced Onion (see Note)
2 teaspoons Sugar

1 pound Dried Spaghetti

2 teaspoon Salt for salting the pasta water


Grated Parmesan Cheese, for garnish

Combine all the meatball ingredients in a large bowl. Mix to combine but don't squeeze too much or the meatballs will be dense and tough. Form into meatballs (small or large, whatever size you like). Put the flour on a plate and roll each meatball in the flour.

Heat the olive oil in a large covered skillet over medium-high heat. Place the meatballs in the hot oil and brown on top and bottom. Turn with care to keep them from breaking apart. Remove the meatballs to a plate. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add all the sauce ingredients and stir to combine. Add back the meatballs and any juice that collected on the plate. Cover the skillet and simmer for 30 minutes, reducing the heat further to keep it from boiling too vigorously.

While the sauce is cooking, bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the spaghetti and salt. Cook spaghetti until al dente, about 9 minutes. Drain. To serve, place a portion of spaghetti in a bowl, ladle on some sauce and meatballs (how many depends on how big you made them) and garnish with grated Parmesan cheese.

Like many sauce-y things, the sauce tastes even better if chilled then reheated.

Note: Dried Minced Onion is a great pantry item. Inexpensive and lasts forever. You can add it directly to sauces and over long cooking, it will dissolve into the sauce, imparting a bit of onion flavor without any crunchy bits of onion. It's my go-to onion in slow cooker recipes where you don't want to bother with sautéing the onions before putting them in the slow cooker.

Meatless Monday - Black-eyed Peas and ?

This is a riff on Hoppin' John, the New Year's Day tradition of serving black-eyed peas with rice. You could serve these with rice. Or pasta, or potatoes, or...up to you. Pasta is the quickest. I like it on rotini, corkscrew pasta.

As discussed in our Cajun Meatloaf, this is Louisiana Style because of the combination of celery, onion, green pepper, and garlic. The first three are called the Holy Trinity and garlic is the Pope, down in Cajun country. No wonder I love the food down there!

You can use a can of cooked black-eyed peas. They are OK. I like to cook them myself and unlike many other beans, they don't require soaking, and cook in under an hour. About 45 minutes, in fact. Instructions on cooking the beans are at the end of recipe.

Though obviously not meatless, this is also a great place to use up a little bit of cooked ham, sausage, or chicken. About ¼ - ½ cup is good. Add it along with the black-eyed peas.

Louisiana Style Black-Eyed Peas
(serves 3, costs $3.10 with canned black-eyed peas)

1 15 oz. can black-eyed peas, drained (use 1 ¾ cups if you cook them yourself)
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
½ onion, chopped, about ¾ cup
½ large green pepper, seeded and chopped, about ¾ cup
2 stalks celery, chopped, about ¾ cup
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ to ¾ teaspoon salt, depending on saltiness of black-eyed peas
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf
2-3 Tablespoons of white wine, broth or water
½ to 1 teaspoon hot sauce (such as Tabasco)

3 servings pasta (6 oz. dry), cooked or 3 cups cooked rice
grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
additional hot sauce

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, green pepper, celery, and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes until onion is translucent. Add black-eyed peas, salt, pepper, the bay leaf, and a few Tablespoons of liquid. Cover, reduce heat to low and cook until black-eyed peas are hot. Remove from the heat, add hot sauce, stir, and remove the bay leaf. Serve over hot pasta or hot rice.

To cook 1 pound of dry black-eyed peas, rinse off the peas, removing any non-pea debris. Bring 4 cups of liquid (stock or water) to a boil in a 2-3 quart saucepan. Add the black-eyed peas and reduce the heat to maintain a simmer - gentle bubbling. Cook for 35-45 minutes until peas are tender. Try a few beans to make sure they are all done. If any are crunchy, cook for another 5 minutes. Drain before using. Since you won't need all the beans for this recipe, refrigerate the reminder, or freeze them. They freeze extremely well.

What's in Season now?

Winter is setting in but that doesn't mean all the good produce deals are gone. A number of fruits and vegetables are not only at their prime right now, but fairly inexpensive.

Citrus: There was a reason people were excited to find oranges in their Christmas stocking once upon a time. Winter is citrus season in the warmer parts of the Northern Hemisphere and they were still hard to get in cold places until well into the 20th century. Nowadays, there is a bumper crop of any number of delicious and nutritious citrus in US supermarkets. There are navel oranges, grapefruits, satsumas and clementines. Great for eating out of hand or using in recipes.

Kabocha squash from my garden. A delicious Japanese variety.

Winter Squash: We wrote about winter squash back in October. It's still out there. Winter squash is a great keeper but when this year's crop is gone, the price will jump.

Spinach: Spinach thrives in cooler temperatures. As any gardener can tell you, it bolts (goes to seed) with the slightest hint of hot weather. Frozen spinach is cheap throughout the year, but the flavor of fresh spinach is far better. Baby spinach is available year-round too but it is usually three to four times as expensive as fresh bunch spinach. Like other fresh greens, spinach needs thorough cleaning. A lot of sand can hide in those leaves. For tips on cleaning it, see our post on kale. This recipe from a recent class calls for baby spinach, but fresh spinach works just as well if you coarsely chop it.

Onions: Aren't onions in season all the time? Yes, you can get onions year-round and they are usually inexpensive. But, they are harvested in the summer, then stored. They are quite sensitive to raising temperatures (not a problem in commercial storage) so as we move out of winter into spring, they start to sprout and get soft soon after showing up in the supermarkets. This time of year, that's not a problem as temperatures remain low.

Here's a recipe that uses lots of onions: a slow cooker pot roast. Many recipes call for dumping everything in the slow cooker and letting is cook for a long, long time. If you do this, the onions will never get meltingly tender. They will stay crunchy even after hours of cooking. You are certainly welcome to cook it that way but it's much better if you take the time to saute the onions in a bit of oil before dumping it in the slow cooker. Yes, yes, another step, but well worth it.

As with most stews and braises, this recipe is even better chilled overnight and reheated. The sauce also freezes well, though don't freeze it with the pasta. Pasta doesn't freeze well.

Italian Pot Roast with Onion Sauce
(serves 8, cost $14.30*)

1 2-pound piece of beef top round, arm roast, or chuck roast
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil or olive oil
4 large onions, thinly sliced
1 carrot, finely chopped
½ stalk celery, finely chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley, about 5 large sprigs
1 teaspoon dried sage, crumbled in your palm
10 whole white or black peppercorns
1 cup white wine (alcohol-free is fine)
1 teaspoon salt + a bit more for seasoning meat and onions
1 cup of water
ground black pepper for seasoning meat
2 Tablespoons tomato paste (see Note)
1 pound penne or rigatoni pasta
grated Parmesan cheese, for garnish

Season meat with salt and black pepper. Place in a 3 to 5 quart slow cooker.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions, sprinkle with about ⅛ teaspoon salt (a healthy pinch), and cook, stirring often, until onions are golden and translucent. Pour all the onions on top of the meat. Add carrot, celery, parsley, sage, peppercorns, white wine, 1 teaspoon salt, and water to slow cooker. Set slow cooker to cook on low for 7 hours.

After 7 hours, remove the meat. It should be quite tender. Shred it and add back to onions. Stir in 2 Tablespoons tomato paste. Keep covered while cooking pasta.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Serve meat sauce over pasta and garnish with Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Note: Look for tomato paste in a tube. It will keep a long time in the refrigerator, unlike an open can of tomato paste.

*Usually, I use local prices to estimate recipe cost. This time I used the USDA's price average for a boneless choice-grade chuck roast, which is $4.57. That's a national average. In my local supermarket, that cut is selling for $5.49/pound, considerably more. The total cost using local prices is $16.10. Which only points out the difficulty of estimating recipe costs. Still, I think it is a useful gauge of costliness of our recipes and will continue to post it.

Adapted from 12 Best Foods Cookbook by Dana Jacobi (Rodale, 2005)

More Turkey Leftovers - Turkey Mac & Cheese

Are you sick of turkey leftovers yet? I'm not. I love turkey. But, maybe you want to save those turkey leftovers for a couple of months down the road, when you will make some hearty turkey soup in the middle of winter. You can freeze the meat if you wrap it well. I wouldn't recommend thawed frozen cooked turkey for a sandwich but it works great for soups and salads where the soup or mayo can moisten the turkey. It's a dry meat that only gets drier after freezing.

Here's another option: make a casserole with it and freeze the casserole. Or eat it this week, if you aren't sick of turkey. :-)

This is a great recipe for extending a fairly modest amount of turkey. You don't even need to use turkey. It's good with chunks of ham or tofu too. This isn't creamy, cheesy mac & cheese. It is extremely easy, however.

Turkey, Tomato & Cheese Casserole
(serves 6-8, costs $11.80)

1 pound elbow macaroni, cooked to al dente and drained (see Notes)
2 cups cooked turkey, cut into ½ to 1" cubes, about 12 ounces
1 large can (28 ounces) diced peeled tomatoes, drained
15 ounces part-skim ricotta cheese (that's a whole medium container)
1 cup milk or cream
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese (4 ounces)
4 - 6 medium scallions, chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano or dried marjoram (see Notes)
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon black pepper
1 slice of bread, grated to make crumbs, about ½ cup of fresh bread crumbs (optional)
2 Tablespoon butter, melted (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray with non-stick spray a 9 x 13 x 2" baking pan.

Combine the macaroni, turkey, tomatoes, ricotta cheese, milk, cheddar cheese, scallions, oregano, salt and pepper in a large bowl and pour into the prepared pan. You can even mix it directly in the baking dish but it is a bit challenging to mix it without making a mess.

If you want a little bit of a crunchy crust, combine the bread crumbs with the melted butter and sprinkle over the casserole. Bake for 40 minutes until hot and golden brown on top.

Notes:

• You don't want to overcook the macaroni because it's going to cook some more in the oven. You want it just done, which takes about 8 minutes of cooking.


• You know those packets of herbs you get with take-out pizza? That's mostly oregano. They can be used here if you have them.

This recipe is loosely based on one in The Turkey Cookbook by Rick Rodgers.

Pasta with Greens, Garbanzos & Feta Cheese

A pot full of tasty pasta

Here's the second pasta dish from out latest class. Super easy and quick. It actually takes longer to boil the water and cook the pasta than it does to put the final dish together. The lemon zest is key. Along with the feta cheese and tomatoes, it brings some bold bright flavors to a pot full of earthy ingredients.

The recipe calls for orecchiette (which means "little ears" in Italian) or small shells. Any smallish pasta will work. We used campanelle (which means "bellflower" in Italian) and that worked just as well. We found that it was necessary to cook the pasta for nearly 12 minutes, but we are cooking this at an altitude of 5400 feet. If you are at sea level, it will probably be al dente in 10 minutes.

Pasta with Greens, Garbanzos & Feta Cheese
(serves 4, cost is $10.30)

8 oz. orecchiette or small shells
¼ cup olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
12 ounces baby spinach
1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup small cherry or grape tomatoes
4 ounces feta cheese, cut into ¼“ cubes or crumbled
1 teaspoon lemon zest (see Note)
Salt and black pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm, stirring occasionally, about 8-12 minutes. Reserve about a 1⁄2 cup of the pasta water and drain pasta.

Wipe the pasta pot out with a towel, and over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant and lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Using a spoon, remove the garlic and discard.

Add the spinach, the beans and tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the pasta, half of the cheese, the lemon zest, and season with salt and pepper. The feta cheese is quite salty so be careful not to over-salt. Toss well and thin out the sauce with a little of the pasta water. Garnish with the remaining cheese and serve.

Note: How do you zest an lemon if you don't have a lemon zester? Use a vegetable peeler to carefully peel off strips of lemon peel. Try to get as little of the white pith as possible since it is terribly bitter. After you have peeled about ½ the lemon, which should be enough for this dish, mince it. It smells intensely lemony and provides great flavor to this dish, so don't leave it out.

One of our students checking out the intense aroma of lemon zest