Broccoli-Basil Mac & Cheese

Ever since this recipe for Broccoli-Basil Mac and Cheese was posted, I was looking forward to it.  I love broccoli and I love mac and cheese.  Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed in the outcome.  I used manchego as called for in the original recipe, and I don't think I like it very much.  The basil flavor didn't come through at all, nor did the out-of-season yellow cherry tomatoes.  The broccoli wasn't pronounced.  The squash seemed out of place.  I probably should have used a half-and-half pasta instead of whole wheat.

I want to go through this recipe and rewrite it to be more appealing to me.  I know I can use it as a starting point to make something great.  I'll likely keep the broccoli bread crumbs, but I'm considering trying a cauliflower bread crumb, maybe sauteed to crisp it up a little.

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.

Collard and Sausage Skillet (and what to do with the leftovers)

On a recent CSA trip we got two bunches of collard greens.  I have taken them a few times from the farm, but I have never gotten around to actually using them.  It turns out they are enough like kale that they can be used in a similar manner.  Collards are notorious for their ability to stand up to strong flavors such as bacon, so I decided to make a dish with collards and sausage.

I made up this dish entirely on my own, though I used a somewhat similar technique to Heidi's White Beans and Cabbage, which inspired this dish by being a one-skillet meal that uses a cruciferous vegetable.  This is one of the times that I was able to make up a dish on the fly and it came out pretty good.  It's been happening more and more lately.

The real purpose for me to share this recipe with you is to share what I did with the leftovers.  Who likes eating the same thing over and over?  I cook for two, so much of my leftovers go in the freezer whenever possible.  Otherwise, we are stuck eating the same thing multiple times until it's all gone.

I made this skillet dish with collard greens and crumbled sausage, but I wasn't totally crazy about it.  When I was eating it, I kept thinking how great it would be as the contents of a soup.  So I decided to use the leftovers to make a soup, and it was good, which is why I am posting about it.  It was really nice to be able to use up the leftovers in a totally new dish, especially since I liked it better than the original.

Collard and Sausage Skillet

2 sweet Italian pork sausages (I got my local organic ones from Cherry Grove Farm)
3/4 cup thinly sliced shallots
1 cup navy beans (canned are fine)
2 bunches collard greens, de-stemmed and sliced into pencil-thin ribbons
Salt and pepper

1. Take the sausage out of the casing and crumble it up.  Heat a skillet over medium heat, add the sausage and break it apart as much as possible.  After a minute or two, toss in the shallots and cook for a few minutes.
2. Rinse and drain your navy beans.  Toss those into the pan too.  Put the lid on for a few minutes if your shallots aren't translucent.
3. Add the collard ribbons, stir it up, and put the lid back on for a few minutes, removing it occasionally to stir.  Try to get the sausage mixture on top of the collard greens so that they come into closer contact with the heat.
4. When the collard ribbons are bright green and slightly wilted, turn off the heat.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Collard and Sausage Soup

2 big cloves of garlic, sliced
Approximately 3 cups of leftover Collard and Sausage Skillet
1 (28-oz) can fire-roasted crushed tomatoes
28 oz water (just fill up the can)
Small pasta shapes (I used half a box or 180g, which was too much)
1 cup water or as much/as little as you desire
Salt and pepper

1. Saute the garlic in a bit of olive oil and let it soften up.  Add the skillet leftovers and stir.
2. Add the crushed tomatoes and water and bring to a boil.
3. When the soup starts to boil, add the small pasta shapes and cook however long the package says.
4. When the pasta is cooked, turn the heat to super low or off.  Add more water to thin the soup to your desired consistency.  If you use a reasonable amount of pasta, you may not even need any water.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

You can make this soup without making the skillet dish first.  Just make the skillet dish as directed, adding the garlic in with the shallots (this would be good to do, I think, even if you're not making the soup) and then continue on as if you had just added the leftovers to the pot.  You may need to add more water to account for the slightly bigger amount of collards (mine were leftovers, remember?)

Stuffed Shells

Heidi at 101 Cookbooks made these Stuffed Shells on the first night she moved into her new apartment.  I made it for Ken - he loves meals like this.  I used Roasted Tomato Marinara from the freezer and added some chopped spinach to the filling for a few extra nutrients.  We made about half the shells for dinner and froze the rest.  This was a great meal - comfort food at its best.  And best of all, I've got a whole dinner in the freezer for a night when I don't feel like cooking.  One quick note - Heidi puts lemon zest in her ricotta mixture.  I personally loved it and barely noticed it at all, but Ken thought it was too lemony.  Next time I might cut back just a bit.

Summer Linguine

Ken made this Summer Linguine for me, from Super Natural Every Day.  Grated zucchini and cheese with a half whole grain pasta (we used angel hair).  It's an interesting way to use zucchini, which we'll all have way too much of in just a few short weeks.  One minor issue - the zucchini clumped quite a bit, which you can see in the photo.  Next time, I'd like to try to get a bigger grate on it somehow to try to distribute it more evenly.

Pasta with Summer Veggies and Shrimp

We made this tasty pasta dish from the multitude of veggies in the fridge.  Zucchini and red bell peppers sauteed with onion and garlic, with torn spinach mixed in, plus pieces of shrimp and red pepper flakes, and some canned tomatoes to make it saucy.  Super tasty and full of veggies!

Lemony Ravioli with Baby Broccoli, Onions, and Walnuts

Here's one that I made up myself :)  Orange-striped ravioli, filled with asparagus and Gruyere, plus sliced onions and baby broccoli florets and stems sautéed with garlic, topped with toasted walnuts and a lemon-olive oil dressing.

Harissa Ravioli

The Harissa Ravioli is this week's second Super Natural Every Day recipe.  It's somewhat similar to the Harissa Spaghettini recipe I posted last month - they both have a spicy, lemony harissa oil dressing.  This one, however, uses ravioli as the pasta (we used a spinach/ricotta stuffed ravioli) and broccoli florets.  We added feta to the Harissa Spaghettini, and this recipe actually calls for it.

We liked this a lot.  We are really digging the stuffed pasta dishes.  Here, I could have swapped out some of the broccoli - maybe for some of the leftover asparagus from the Tortellini Salad.  I used half of the harissa called for, and it was plenty spicy - this stuff is pretty strong.  I omitted the black olives out of laziness (and Ken hates them) and we decided on toasted slivered almonds for the crunchy aspect, but I'd like to try the pepitas next time.  The recipe says it serves 4, but we used slightly less ravioli and polished it off between the two of us.  I see some more stuffed pasta dishes in our future!

Tortellini Salad

I chose a few recipes to make from Super Natural Every Day this week and bought all the ingredients - now I'm committed to making them!  First up this week was the Tortellini Salad, with crisp broccoli and asparagus, creamy avocado, a lemony-garlicky dressing, the bright flavor of cilantro, and crunchy toasted almonds.  It's served at room temperature, which is perfect for warmer weather.  It wouldn't be too difficult to vary the vegetables, and I could even see doing a grilled version - grilled asparagus or zucchini instead of quickly cooking it in the pasta water - even leftover grilled vegetables would work well here.  We used an asiago-ricotta tortelloni (they're bigger than the little tortellini) which brought a great saltiness that tied the outside of the pasta to the inside.  I'd like to try tortellini next time, since it would more closely match the size of the cut vegetables.  I can't wait to get deeper into this book - so far I'm very pleased with the recipes I've made.

Fettuccine with Asparagus Puree

Here's another one from Super Natural Cooking - Fettuccine with Asparagus Puree.  I've been trying to get rid of certain things in my freezer and I quickly got sick of eating microwaved frozen asparagus as a side to things.  When I saw this recipe, I thought it would be perfect to try.  I'm a fan of vegetable "pesto" on pasta - lots of nutrients without having to spear each piece.  You basically just puree asparagus, spinach, and common pesto ingredients - lemon, grated cheese, garlic - and use it as a sauce for pasta.  The recipe called for pine nuts, but since I don't have any and they are $$$ right now, I opted for blanched slivered almonds, which worked just fine.  You could feed this (and the Winter Pasta) to kids and call it Monster Pasta or something.  It's neon green, so what better way to coerce children into eating veggies?  (It might work for adults, too.)

Harissa Spaghettini

I always buy produce for a certain purpose and never get around to using it.  I had some kale that had been meant for a dish that I never ended up making, and I needed a quick, easy recipe to use it up.  I skimmed through some kale recipes online and decided on the Harissa Spaghettini recipe from 101 Cookbooks.

The harissa oil was super spicy!  We added feta, which gave it some saltiness as well as a cooling element.  I tried the chopped black olives that were in the recipe, but I preferred it without them.  We used blanched slivered almonds instead of the pine nuts, which I didn't have on hand (plus they're so expensive now!).  I forgot the lemon zest, which is too bad because I'm sure it adds a fresh refreshing flavor, but I'll be sure to try it next time.  This was pretty good and was an easy, quick weeknight dinner and a nice way to use up kale.

Spaghetti with Braised Kale

I stopped at Whole Foods the other day (I've convinced myself that being 20 minutes away from there is "in the area") and I picked up some lacinato kale.  I had something in my brain for what to do with it, but it took me a while to dig it out.  It finally clicked for me - this Spaghetti with Braised Kale was posted a few weeks ago and I had meant to try it.

Now, I'm sorry to say this was not worth the stress of trying to remember what I wanted to make.  It was okay, but nothing exciting.  If it sounds appealing, I would recommend using less pasta or more kale - I used only one bunch since that's all I had.  The cheese totally saved the dish.

Roasted Scallops with Breadcrumbs and Bacon

Roasted Scallops with Breadcrumbs and Bacon

 
Roasted Scallops with 
Breadcrumbs and Bacon

Full disclosure: I did not make this.  It was made for me, which I enjoyed very much.  I wanted to mention it anyway because it was delicious :)  We had it with spinach and pasta and it was great.  It's nice to have a glass of wine with a home cooked meal that you didn't have to make yourself.

This was simple and so, so delicious.  Some frozen scallops, slightly old parsley and panko breadcrumbs that have been in the pantry for at least a year came together to make something special.  The bacon really made the dish.

To make it more substantial, we sauteed spinach and garlic, and served it all on top of some whole grain spaghetti.

Easy enough for a weeknight, nice enough for casual company.  And extra delicious when it's made for you :)

Pasta with Fresh Corn Pesto

As I write this, I have some bacon sizzling away on the stove, because I am making this for the second time this week.  Yes, it was THAT good.  What an awesome treatment for the amazing fresh corn we have here in NJ.  I normally pick up two ears from the market, or enough for the whole family if we want it down the shore, but I was happy to get the SIX ears needed for this Pasta with Fresh Corn Pesto almost as soon as I saw it.

And bacon!  Oh man, do I love bacon.  One of the few things I missed when I was a vegetarian several years ago was bacon.  YUM.  This recipe has you saute little pieces of bacon until crisp, then pour off most of the fat and use the rest to saute corn kernels cut fresh off the cob with garlic and crushed red pepper flakes.  You reserve some of the cooked kernels, using the rest in an amazing pesto with Parmesan.  We didn't thin the pesto at all when we put it on the pasta - we like our sauces thick and delicious.  We really couldn't imagine why anyone would want to water it down.

For anyone who loves the richness of cream-based sauces like alfredo, but wants to get in a serving of vegetables, this is a great recipe to try.  (Not that this could be considered healthy by any means...) The recipe notes actually state that even people who don't like corn (I didn't know anyone like that existed!) liked this dish.  The bacon is NOT optional by any means.  I feel that it is totally essential to the dish.  There is no way I would ever leave it out.  (I actually used twice the amount the second time around...) I feel the same about the crushed red pepper.  Yes, it was a little spicy, but in a flavorful and not overwhelming way.  You could cut it down, if you have to, but don't cut it out.

This is something I am going to make again and again and again.  I don't buy corn from the grocery store, only from the market, and sadly it will be winter sooner than you think and it won't be available anymore.  For now, I will be enjoying it as much as possible.

Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce

I check a lot of blogs (all those listed down the side over there) because I like to read about food and look at pictures of it.  Most of the time the recipes don't appeal to me enough to actually try them, and if they do, I usually don't get around to making them.  This Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce was an exception - it looked delicious, it sounded delicious, and guess what?  It was delicious. 

I had some cherry tomatoes on the counter that were starting to get just the tiniest bit wrinkly.  So I took advantage and made this dish for a weeknight dinner.  It was actually really easy, even easier than it looks, but it did take about 30 minutes to roast the tomatoes to my liking instead of the 20 that the recipe said.

I set the table (a rare phenomenon) and I had some beautiful flowers from our CSA.

Walnut Miso Noodles

Sometimes we have to make something quick and painless for dinner.  I just got a container of miso the other day (I was finally able to find it at Whole Foods - it was in the refrigerated section near the fake meats.  Who knew?) so we decided to try the Walnut Miso Noodles on 101 Cookbooks.  We opted for soba instead of whole wheat (next time, I wouldn't) and rinsed the noodles under cold water (finally, we follow the directions... for the wrong recipe - next time, I wouldn't).  We used some sauteed swiss chard (with stems), edamame and toasted walnuts for some veg and crunch - pretty good choices.

The dressing was good.  I would make this again, but have it warm instead, and with whole wheat noodles instead of soba.  The easy substitution of veg makes this a great use-up-what's-in-the-fridge weeknight dish.

Classic Tomato Spaghetti

Dinner tonight was classic tomato spaghetti from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution book. There could not be an easier, more delicious dinner. This took literally 15 minutes. I see no reason for time to ever be a reason to not make dinner again.

Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes and Garlic

I stopped at the farmers' market around the corner the other day and ran straight into a big stack of cartons full of small, brightly colored tomatoes. Each carton held a mix of several different colors and I picked up two right away, almost forgetting what I had stopped for in the first place. I didn't have a plan for them, but I knew I could find one.


Ken mentioned (again) that he doesn't like sun-dried tomatoes. He did tack on the end of that statement this time that he does like roasted tomatoes. That got me thinking of the roasted cherry tomatoes I made for the Red Pesto Ravioli over the summer.

I consulted my handbook (HTCEV) for roasting instructions, then added extra olive oil and thinly sliced garlic (thank you Pampered Chef Garlic Slicer!). This went on my stoneware into the oven for a while. We tossed it with a long thin pasta. The garlicky olive oil and tomatoes made a lovely sauce.

Next time I will try to remove some of the seeds since they were a little out of hand. Maybe I will try again with my second carton of tomatoes... or maybe I will think of something new.

Almost Cheeseless Pasta Casserole

I have been meaning to make this Almost Cheeseless Pasta Casserole for a while. I had to wait for butternut squash season to make it, but I had one in my cabinet (they last a looong time!) so I decided to use it. I adjusted it slightly to match the tastes of my household (aka boyfriend) but it came out pretty yummy.

I skipped the mint and kalamata olives and used probably much more feta than intended (I guess I should knock off the "almost cheeseless" part then...). The yogurt mixture had me worried, but I made sure the pasta/squash/spinach was cool before mixing it in so it didn't curdle. I also left the almonds out of the mix because I had read in some of the comments that they got soggy in there, which is understandable given the large quantity of yogurt. I sprinkled some on top near the end of baking so that they wouldn't burn. They definitely added a nice crunch to the dish and it was good to have that different texture.

One thing I would definitely do differently is cut the spinach smaller. More like in the baked pasta casserole dish that I made a while back (on here... but I just made it the other day also) so that it wasn't so big and weird. I might cut the squash into smaller cubes instead of slices also.

Bucatini with Mushrooms

I get Cooking Light every month and a lot of the recipes have meat in them. I just don't care much for meat anymore (but I do love seafood...), and while I am not a vegetarian exactly I don't care for cooking meat either, so I am always on the lookout for vegetarian recipes in there as well as stuff from other cultures. The current issue (probably November 2009) has a whole beautifully photographed section on how to create the perfect noodle bowl from a variety of cultures. I chose a little trip to Italy with Bucatini with Mushrooms.

By now my very few readers are probably familiar with my addiction to the Rutgers Gardens farm market, and I may have mentioned the guy who sells mushrooms. A whole stand dedicated to mushrooms - cremini, portobello, oyster, shiitake... and you can buy a mix of them as well. I immediately thought of this when I read this recipe and I made the plan to make it on a Friday so I would have wonderful fresh mushrooms to use. Of course I picked up the mix and got straight to work.


This recipe was a lot of work so of course I had a little assistance from my sous chef (Ken). In addition to the mushroom mix, the recipe calls for dried porcini mushrooms. According to many (including one of my favorites, Mark Bittman) the dried mushrooms add an extra dimension to the flavor profile of the dish. The 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream was an interesting addition also, but it gave the sauce a creamy texture which happens to go well with mushrooms.

I might make this again, but it was a lot of work. A special occasion might warrant it, but it would be necessary to have access to a mushroom blend like this one. The market is unfortunately only open until the end of October.