Baked Pasta with Cabbage and Potatoes

I was skeptical about this recipe.  Baked pasta... good.  With cabbage... a little weird.  And potatoes... with pasta?  The cabbage mixture has mustard in it... and there's cheese.  But I needed a recipe that would use up a decent amount of Napa cabbage, so I gave it a shot.  Well, it was really surprisingly good.  I actually plan to make it again, though it won't be for me (more on that at a later date).

There are a few layers in this recipe.  You repeat each layer twice, in the same order.  First, a whole grain pasta - I used a whole wheat fusilli.  Next, the potatoes, followed by grated Parmesan and cubes of fontina.  The final layer is a mixture of Napa cabbage and leeks, flavored with garlic and whole-grain mustard.  I added extra mustard until I found the cabbage mixture absolutely delicious on its own.  After being baked in the oven, the cheese melted and the mustard flavor developed a new dimension.  We gladly ate the leftovers for a few days.

Cauliflower and Leek Soup with Hazelnuts and Brown Butter

Since I have been on this soup kick lately, I've been trying to use it to my advantage by using up things that are already in my fridge.  This soup used up two heads of cauliflower approaching their last days as well as some leeks I've had for almost a month.  And, it was tasty too!

Ever since the Hazelnut Muffins (<3) I've been especially attracted to hazelnuts and brown butter.  They added a nice change of pace to this soup - I like to have a little crunch in there.

So when I came across the recipe for this Cauliflower and Leek Soup with Hazelnuts and Brown Butter, I was excited to try it.  A few notes: it would still be great with a lot less butter, or even none, and the excessive salt added when you boil the cauliflower pretty much eliminates the need for salt at the end.  White pepper adds an interesting flavor.  I followed the recipe exactly, and the resulting soup was a bit indulgent - a great addition to a holiday menu or for guests.  You don't need much to feel full.

This soup got me thinking - how many servings of vegetables are in a cup of soup?

Orange Cauliflower and Butternut Squash Soup

One of my most favorite blogs to read is Cannelle et Vanille.  The pictures are so inspiring and so are the unusual flavor combinations.  As someone who can eat wheat products, I don't make a lot of the gluten-free recipes on the site even though they sound amazing.  I did come across this Orange Cauliflower and Butternut Squash Soup recipe, posted on another site where she did an interview, and I was intrigued.  I didn't think I would ever see orange cauliflower, but one appeared to me at the market in a bin full of its white friends.  (Later, at the other market I go to, I saw a giant bright purple one too!  What a day.)  So I got it and made this soup a few days later.

Some things about the recipe are a little odd, so you kind of have to go with your instincts.  There are no measurements given for the cauliflower or butternut squash besides "one" and maybe a loose descriptor like "small" or "large," yet the recipe calls for 2 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of black pepper.  As I put the pepper in the pot I thought to myself, hmm, this seems like a lot of pepper.  Then I dumped it in.  Then I thought, "maybe I'll use a little less salt and add more later on."  So I used 1 tsp of salt.  I did add more later, but I strongly doubt it came out to a full teaspoon.  The black pepper ended up providing a noticeable kick, in a very good way.  The soup seemed fairly basic from the recipe, so I used a bouillon cube with herbs instead of just a regular one.

The recipe made about 2.5 quarts, a little more than the other soup recipes I have been making.  I suspect this may have been in part because of the giant head of cauliflower I used.  You could definitely make this with white cauliflower, but the orange complements the color of the butternut squash, so you won't get quite as orange a soup.  We ate these with Panetini crackers/toasts left over from the summer bruschetta, but the recipe recommends parmesan and herb crackers which sound delicious as well.  This was Ken's favorite soup so far, so I suspect I will be making more of it later this winter.

Thanksgiving 2009

I had fun cooking for Thanksgiving with my mom. It took days (literally) and was gobbled up in about 30 minutes (literally) but everything came out pretty great. Here is a little photo tour through our menu... unfortunately I didn't get pictures of everything, but I'll try to describe it all.

Appetizers

Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts: I thought these would be gross - I hate water chestnuts. But between the bacon fat and the globs of honey, they softened up a lot and were really flavorful. There is no real recipe for this - just wrap water chestnuts with bacon, pop in a toothpick, and pile on the honey.





In addition to this, we also had brie with dried cranberries, walnuts, and thyme. I think some more stuff was out, but nothing too fancy.

Salad

Winter Green Salad with Sugared Walnuts, Crispy Pears and Pomegranate Vinaigrette: This is from Clean Food. The dressing was a huge success... it was made from pomegranate juice, a little balsamic vinegar, zesty honey mustard... delicious. I didn't use the sugared walnuts recipe from Clean Food because I had to make them for the stuffing anyway (see below), and that recipe was much easier. The tough part here was getting the pomegranate arils out of the fruit. Also check out my sweet Vera Bradley apron!

Main Course

Ham and Turkey: No pictures of the turkey, but here is the ham being slathered in brown sugar. There was some other stuff involved, but I don't know what. All I have to say is... yummm!







Sage, Walnut, and Dried Fig Stuffing: This is a 101 Cookbooks recipe, which I was so excited to make. As I mentioned earlier, I made the sugared walnuts (egg whites, sugar and salt) and used them also in the salad. I was so excited to have vegetarian stuffing with no meat in it! And although it was pretty dry (Mom even added extra liquid) it still tasted good. I would add more liquid next time though.




Wild Rice with Apples: This recipe is from Cooking Light - if not October 2009, another fall issue for this year. I was so excited to make this. It takes a long time though, and so I had to get dressed while I was waiting to bring it to a boil. I asked my mom to turn it down to a simmer after it boiled. A looong time later, I realized that she had turned it all the way up instead. Oops! There was no liquid left but it was completely uncooked. I managed to salvage it by adding a ton of extra liquid and cooking it much longer. Fortunately it turned out really good. It was a really interesting side dish and fit well with the holiday - the sauteed Pink Lady apples were so good.

We also had the typical sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

Desserts

Best-Ever Apple Pie: This is from a cookbook of my mom's - I forget the title, but it is actually quite interesting. I read it while I was supposed to be helping with the cooking. This woman traveled to farms all over the country to collect recipes. A lot of them are kind of disgusting (using ingredients like lard, etc.) but some are really cool. There are also sidebars about stuff like avocado farming, for example. Haley did most of this by herself - I helped a little though.

Tofu Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust: Another Clean Food recipe, but not as much of a hit. There was some flavor here that just wasn't really great, but it was OK. The gingersnap crust was very good though.







Mini Sweet Potato Tarts: Mom made these after she overcooked the sweet potato. I ended up taking over and scooping the stuff into all of the cups and putting on the sweet pecan mixture. I didn't try one of these (I don't like sweet potatoes, I will have to try them again someday) but they looked pretty good.