Posts Tagged ‘pasta’

I love discovering new ingredients to play with. Part of the reason I find cooking so exciting and challenging is that there is an endless ocean of cuisine, recipes, ingredients, and food out there to sail though, and although sometimes the waters are choppy, it’s always a fun adventure.

I tried bison meat for the first time recently via it being on sale at my local grocer, and I was amazed by the taste. It really wasn’t gamey as I had expected it to be, but had a very rich, meaty flavor with a great natural earthiness to it. And then I found out it has half the calories and 1/8 the fat as normal beef, plus it’s always free-range. I was in love.

So pondering what to do with a pound of ground bison… meatballs naturally popped into my head. Spaghetti and meatballs is one of those comfort foods universally loved, like pizza or mac n cheese. So why not take on a classic. The meatballs are unbelievably tender and moist despite using such a naturally lean protein (something I was worried about), and the flavor is classically garlicky with parmesan.  My recipe for simple tomato sauce is one of those great things that you can make with pantry staples and it barely takes any time or attention. Plus it always tastes better than the jarred stuff – I guarandamntee it.

Panko.

Meatballs!

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One of the things I miss most about living near my family is Sunday dinner.  When I was living at home, it was always something I looked forward to, and it was my weekly chance to show off a little and make something extra scrumptious and more time-consuming than any other weeknight meal.

This is one of the most thumbed, stained recipes in my Ina Garten cookbook, and for good reason.  It’s a really simple dish – just the classic pan-fried pounded chicken with lemon-butter sauce.  I just love a lemon beurre blanc and Ina’s is so fantastic, I don’t change much and it’s one of the easiest ways to learn how to work with acid and butter.

One of the other great things about the recipe is that it halves or multiplies very easily, so you can make this for 2 or 4 or 8 easily every time. I like serving a nice pasta tossed simply with good olive oil and herbs on the side, but you can also serve rice or just a fresh salad too.

Fall flavors are back with a vengeance! Well, not so much a vengeance as a delicate “ahem” with this dish. I made this for Valentine’s Day last year when my former roommate Beth and I had a fun single-gals dinner and drinks night. Beth was in town this past weekend and somehow this lasagna got brought up in conversation, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since (thanks, Beth!). Thankfully the flavors are über-autumnal and since I’m a big fan lately of making a dinner on Sunday I can literally eat all week, this fit the bill perfectly.

This lasagna is deliciously deceiving. You hear lasagna and you think mountains of cheese, meat, pasta, sauce, etc. But this vegetarian version is actually pretty light and delicate (well, as delicate as lasagna can be) and not that bad calorie-wise. Sweet and savory butternut squash puree and basil béchamel is layered with yummy fresh pasta sheets and mozzarella cheese to balance it out. I think it’s best served with a nice bitter salad, like endive or raddichio, dressed simply with good balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.

Time to take a little break from fall/squash/cinnamon flavors and do something a little different. This post is a miniature tribute to two things: one of my best friends Rachel and Gourmet magazine.  I didn’t intend for this to happen but it was just one of those realizations as you begin to work with something. Rach teaches in Bahrain but is from Minnesota, so we’re both Midwestern fall-loving girls at heart. Since she doesn’t really get to experience autumn, this was a way for me to give her something fun and easy to cook, and give me a break from typical autumnal flavor profiles.

As for Gourmet, this is a web-exclusive recipe of theirs, which is my sad little homage to a fantastic magazine that will be missed. Word is the website will be gone come the new year, and after looking at my bookmarked recipes and seeing row after row of entries with little black and white “G”s marking them, I was disheartened. I get inspired by food photography and food print almost more than anything, so the idea that Gourmet, one of the best (if not the best) will no longer be there to give me ideas is heartbreaking. So I salute you, Rach in Bahrain with no fall leaves, and Gourmet magazine for inspiring me all these years.

Now for the recipe – this is a super quick and yummy noodle dish, perfect for substitutions and open to putting your own spin on it. I’m a huge fan of spicy eggplant dishes from Asian take-out, so I threw that in, with some more spices and soy to layer the flavors. The flavor is rich and spicy, but also refreshing from the cilantro and basil. And like any good wok dish, it’s all about super high heat with short cooking time, which makes this a perfect fast weeknight dinner.

Be careful what you wish for or you just might get it.

Right before I made this dish I was musing on how out of all the recipes I’ve tried specifically for this site, only one has been labeled a complete and total failure (oh feta dill pie, you were terrible and let’s not speak of you again).  This recipe doesn’t quite make it to ‘failure’ status, but it certainly won’t be receiving the ‘favorite’ tag either.  Since my sister and I have The Shining, we made this within 3 days of each other and both did our spins on it, with mediocre results.  She used capers instead of olives, I used pecorino romano instead of feta and a different pasta shape, yet both results were lackluster.

The idea behind this dish is great.  Like pasta puttanesca, you make a room temperature tomato  sauce (using the best heirloom tomatoes in this case) with some olives, toss hot pasta with it, add some cheese, and dig in.  Since I’ve been battling a horrible head cold and didn’t feel like spending my energy standing in the kitchen for hours, the idea really appealed to me.

The flavor isn’t bad per se, it’s just very subtle and nothing extraordinary.  Something I did notice however while snacking on the cold leftovers late last night was that the flavor intensified and the entire dish was more enjoyable cold, after sitting for a day.  Honestly, if I were to make this again, I would make it, chill it, and serve it the next day as a cold pasta salad.  But hot for an entree?  Probably not again anytime soon.