Orecchiette

Orechetty.

Orechiet.

Oreychett.

Oreccchhhiiiieettiieee.

"Little ears"

:)

I'm definitely going to nail that before we go to Italy :) Until then, guess I'll just go with 'Li'l Ears'!

So, this is another recipe from the backlog - I made this several weeks ago as a quick fix for dinner. I'd only cooked li'l ears a couple of times before and was pleasantly surprised by how easily the pasta picked up flavours and yet didn't get gooey. Guess they're pretty thick ears! :)


The highlight of this recipe was the garlic chives from the veggie patch - they lent a fabulously fresh flavour and aroma to the dish. Garlic rocks! So do chives. So together, they can only kick ass, right? A coarse pesto of sort with these chives, some parsley and pine nuts lent a gamut of flavours. And the cauliflower ... seriously, I'm falling in love with it all over again. The cauliflower picked up all the flavours and still stayed a bit crunchy - guess this was one of those few times when I lucked out and blanched the cauliflower *just* enough!

Li'l Ears and Cauliflower with Chives-Parsley Pesto
Eat a ear or 3, please?

Servings: 3-4 moderate servings or 2 super-hungry servings

4 cups of cooked orecchiette
(I honestly don't remember how long these have to be cooked, all I recall is that I used this fabulously chewy tri-colour orecchiette from Whole Foods - tomato, spinach and no-flavour)

1 T olive oil
a generous handful of garlic chives
another generous handful of italian parsley
2 serrano peppers
15-20 pine nuts
(you could substitute with walnuts here)
1 t sea salt

1 t olive oil
8-10 sundried tomatoes - chopped
(if these are the dry variety, soak them in warm water for 5-10 minutes before chopping them up)
3 scallions with the stalks - chopped
1/2 head of a medium cauliflower - cut into large florets

Heat a pot of water with a T of salt to a roiling boil. Place the cauliflower florets in the hot water, cover and boil till tender (but not mushy) for about 7-9 minutes.
[ Another option here is to just steam the cauliflower - you can place the florets on a steaming rack in a pan over boiling water, cover tightly and steam for 7-10 minutes]

Use a pestle to create a coarse, chunky paste of the pine nuts (or walnuts), parsley and chives, serrano peppers and salt (you could just grind them up instead). Stream in the olive oil slowly and continue crushing the pesto till the oil is soaked in.

Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the scallions lightly.
Stir in the pesto along with the sun-dried tomatoes and saute for a couple of minutes.
Now throw in the cauliflower and the pasta and stir for a couple more minutes.

Season with salt, maybe garnish with more chives? Or even throw some freshly grated parmesan on top?



Opinion?

Happy, tasty, easy-fix pasta. And replete with home-grown herbs. Yum!

Off this goes to Jessica of Finny Knits who is hosting this round of Grow Your Own (started by Andrea).

Ooo ... this is a bonus! I can even send this to Michelle at Greedy Gourmet for this week's edition of Presto Pasta Nights (that popular pasta event started by Ruth (Once Upon a Feast) :)

Eating local and all that good stuff ...

Local ... sustainable ... organic ... earth-friendly ... call-it-what-you-want ... All the buzzwords making the rounds in the food world recently.

A handful of years ago, the air started teeming with the concept of organic foods. Horrendously expensive, but Oh! so right and healthier and tastier ... I can honestly say that with some fruits and vegetables, we could taste the difference - like tomatoes and peppers and most greens. And cherries for sure! But with others ... nah! Couldn't quite savour the difference. But we loved the idea of hitting the local farmers' markets and buying our produce and starters there. Especially after growing up in India where there are vendors trolling the streets selling their produce and it is so very common to walk to the little store at the end of the street to buy veggies for the evening's dinner, it felt so right to shop local, pick and feel the veggies before dropping them into our baskets. I still remember the first time I bought green beans at a local market -

K strides up confidently to this vendor at the Redmond farmers' market, picks up a green bean or 3 and snaps them between her fingers!
Vendor's jaw drops!
K looks up at him, wondering if he's having a seizure! Isn't that how folks check for good beans? That's how the mum did it, right?
Vendor recovers and starts laughing! And slowly asks with a smile "Do you HAVE to snap the beans before you buy them?"
K turns beet red, realizing her cool "snap-the-bean" tactic is not so cool here! And finally learns to just buy the damn green beans without obsessing about snapping them.

Ok, so what does this incident have to do with all that local, organic goodness? Umm ... nothing. I just felt like telling a story, that's all! :)

Today, it seems like we're way past organic, which I personally believe is a great thing. We're not just trying to live by some ostensibly vaguely defined standard of agriculture, but we're going several steps beyond. We're seeking out local foods, sustainable foods that are developed without monocyclic farming methods. We're looking to form bonds with the local farmers that bring those delicious beets and greens and turnips and garlic snapes to our plates.

Yes, I very much like to have a personal stake in what I'm writing about.
~ Michael Pollan

So, talking about eating local ... we love it! Truly, madly, deeply! Pretty much all our veggies come from the veggie patch or a local market, except for the occasional indulgence in something that has been on a plane. Honestly, we don't know if it helps with all that carbon footprint stuff that is making the rounds everywhere, but it sure makes us feel good. Plus, we have a connection with several local vendors, the tomato guy even asks me how the plants are doing - they're quite happy, thankfully! I would feel terrible to tell him that I did the plant in!!!


So, this meal was one of those mostly local ones. Took all of 15 minutes to throw it together and tasted so blissful, I'm still talking about it! All that it took to make this meal:

Local:

* A slew of garlic and vidalia sweet onions from the market
* Spinach and Roasted Garlic Ravioli from the pasta guy (La Pasta?) at the Madrona farmers' market
* A fabulous sourdough loaf from La Panzanella
* Roasted Red Pepper tapenade from La Buona Tavola
* Yummy Cirrus Camembert from Mt.Townsend Creamery
* Gouda from Golden Glen Creamery

Not so local:

* A really tasty bottle of Tinta de Toro that Abbie heartily recommended - super fruity and luscious!
* And the rest of the glue (spices, oils, etc) We're not obsessively local about our ingredients, but we definitely keep an eye out for fresh local produce and wines as much as we can. Yes, there is definitely a feel-good factor there :) But the biggest kicks (for us) are the insanely awesome quality of the foods and the whole community-bonding thing.

As for this meal, what more could we ask for - fabulous ingredients, perfect company, warm summer evening. Sheer bliss!



And yes, substandard pictures, but whatever! :)

Silly Fusilli!

Estelle Costanza: Where have you been? You were supposed to fix the stove! I've been waiting for hours!
Frank Costanza: I fell on some Fusilli!

Estelle Costanza: Fusilli?
Frank Costanza: You know, the corkscrew pasta. It was a Fusilli Jerry. It got stuck in me. Had to go to the proctologist.

~Seinfeld, Episode: The Fusilli Jerry

****

Could I ever cook fusilli with a straight face after watching this? :) Guess not! As long as I can keep cooking and eating fusilli, I'm happy - straight face, screwy face, who cares! :)

This was one of those meals thrown together when we were craving healthy carbs - we had whole wheat fusilli on hand, a slew of bell peppers waiting to be worked with ... some onions, garlic, a slew of juicy baby carrots ... let's get the meal on!

Fusilli with Peppers, Carrots and Onions
Damn, that corkscrew pasta tastes good! :)

Servings: 4

1 lb red and yellow bell peppers
3 T olive oil
1 large red onion - thinly sliced
8-10 baby carrots - cut into long chunks
4 cloves garlic - minced
1 lb whole wheat fusilli
salt, freshly ground black pepper
freshly grated Parmesan cheese
3 T finely chopped fresh parsley


Place the peppers under a hot broiler and turn occasionally until they're blackened on all sides. Turn off the broiler and let the peppers sit for 5-10 minutes.
Peel the peppers, cut them into chunks and remove the stems. Most recipes ask for the seeds to be discarded, but we like the pungent zing of the seeds, so we usually incorporate them in our recipes.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt and the pasta to the boiling water and cook until the pasta is just al dente.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the onions and cook over moderate heat till translucent (about 5-8 minutes).
Stir in the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes.
Now, add the carrot chunks and saute for 3-4 minutes.
Throw in the peppers and mix together gently.
Stir in about 3-4 T of the pasta water and continue to stir.
Season with salt and pepper, and stir in the parsley.
Drain the pasta and tip it into the pan with the vegetables.
Cook over moderate heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly to mix the pasta into the sauce.

Serve topped with Parmesan.

****

Those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it.
~Author Unknown

Opinion?

Simple, flavourful, insanely quick! And honestly, being condemned to reheat the pasta sounds like a pretty good option to me :)

A certified candidate for Ruth's Presto Pasta Nights!

I'm red but not embarassed ...

I'm hot for you, baby
I'm a big old beet
I'm red but not embarassed
and I'm good with meat
Of course, I make an excellent borscht
and I'm hot for you, baby!

The Hot Beet Song from the Brak Show :)

No meat or borscht today. But we're definitely talking about a red beet, red enough to stain our penne :) We're pretty big fans of penne - always seems like the perfect length for pasta, thick and chewy and lately, there seem to be a plethora of varieties that are insanely tasty - like the fabulous whole wheat and flax version carried by TJs.

This recipe was a quick'n'easy thrown together on one of thost post-workout nights when one craves carbs - the healthy kind, made all the better when tosses with an abundance of vegetables. We settled for a whole wheat penne, tossed with marinated beets and a few other vegetables. The killer flavour though was the dry curds we added as an afterthought!

If you haven't tried Sunshine Ithe most common brand of dry curds) as yet, I would strongly recommend it. It is a little hard to find, we've only consistently found it at Whole Foods. These dry curds make for a great substitute for cottage cheese - drier, chunkier, WAY less sodium, tons of protein and they absorb flavours incredibly well. We've used them with pastas, in salads, even in purees for sauces - every single option has worked outstandingly well. And when you're in training and trying to load up on protein, it makes for incredible nutrition, especially for someone who is predominantly vegetarian!

*****

Beet-stained Penne + vegetables
I'm definitely red, but not embarassed :)

Servings: 2

3 cups of whole wheat penne - cooked al dente
1/2 vidalia onion - sliced long
1 red beet -diced
2 T balsamic vinegar
2 T olive oil
8-10 large green olives (pitted)
1 cup Sunshine dry curds
8-10 brussel sprouts - sliced thick
salt, red pepper flakes
1 T dried marjoram

Mix 1 T of olive oil and the balsamic vinegar and toss with the diced beets.
Let the beet bits marinate for about 1/2 hour.

Heat the remaining 1T of olive oil and saute the onions till browned.
Add the sliced brussel sprouts and saute for 3-4 minutes.
If the olives are marinated in brine, wipe them clean and slice them.
Add the olive, salt and marjoram and saute for 1-2 minutes.
Add the cooked penne and toss till all ingredients are well mixed.
Add the dry curds and saute for another minute or 2 on low.
Take off the heat and toss with the beets, add the marinade into the pasta too.
Season with red pepper flakes (and salt) as needed.

*****

Opinion?

Simple and really tasty - we kind of achieved the optimal blend of sweet and tart flavours accentuated with a touch of spice. And the dry curds totally absorbed the juices, making for a succulent addition to the pasta!

Quick? Definitely! Pasta? Hell Yes! Off this goes to Ruth of Once Upon a Feast for Presto Pasta Night. :)

Care for some kohlrabi?

I know I've eaten kohlrabi in some form earlier in my lifetime, but I remember nothing about it. Every once in a while, I think about it, wonder why I haven't done much it and then move on. But it was a different story last week - I was trolling PCC wearing my find-new-vegetables hat and I sighted bunches of pretty purple kohlrabis sitting around. I grabbed a bunch right away and got all excited about what I could do with it - saute? bake? gratin of some kind? *so* many options!



I love cabbage. I like turnips too. In fact, I love most of those rugged green vegetables - brussel sprouts, collard, cauliflower, broccoli ... pretty likely that I'll like these cabbage cultivar. Whoa! Apparently, kohlrabi actually means cabbage+turnip - clever? (not!) :)

As I was browsing one of my vegetarian cookbooks, I came across a recipe for a traditional caponata - it usually contained eggplants, tomatoes, olives, maybe some wine and some turbinado sugar to cut the tartness of the tomatoes. Well, I kind of started off thinking I would replace the eggplant with kohlrabi, but I ended up going much further - skipping the tomato seemed like a good idea, I ended up using some sumac instead. And things just got cooking from there.

Kohlrabi Caponata (of sorts!)
"Cabbage+turnip" over pasta?!!

Servings: 2

2 kohlrabis - peeled and sliced
1/2 red onion - sliced long
1/2 carrot - diced
10-12 gren olives
10-12 capers
3 cloves garlic - smashed
1/4 cup red wine
1 T turbinado sugar
1 t balsamic vinegar
1 T extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
a couple of drops of truffle oil
cooked spaghetti to serve with the caponata

Heat the oil in a wok and saute the onions till they start to brown.
Add the smashed garlic along with the kohlrabi and carrots and simmer covered for about 6-7 minutes.
Toss in the red wine and simmer for another 3-4 minutes till the liquid reduces to 1/4 of the original quantity.
Add the olives, capers, sugar and vinegar and saute a li'l more.
Finally season with the salt and pepper, maybe even some red pepper flakes.
Top the pasta with the caponata or toss them all together, your choice! :)


Any good?
It was fabulous! The earthy and peppery flavours of the kohlrabi blended with the sweet-sour sauce and danced on our palates. *so* good! I can't wait to dig into that kohlrabi again.

Oooo ... new vegetable - this means I need to ship this off to Vani for Weekend Herb Blogging!

Pasta Bliss!

You're starving, you want something tasty, you want something quick! Know that feeling? I do! It rapidly descended on me a couple of nights ago. And it reeked strongly of wheat cravings too :)

Quick ... tasty ... healthy ... wheaty .... pasta! PCC has this really awesome tomato/spinach whole wheat fusilli that picks up flavors really well. And I had a bunch of fresh bell peppers that I chose to broil before adding to the pasta. If you haven't broiled and sliced peppers before, I would heartily recommend that - the meaty texture and slightly smoky aroma is pretty awesome!

Seriously, this pasta took about 25 minutes to make and made for a fabulously flavorful meal!

Truly Presto Pasta!
Cooked and eaten in under an hour :)

Servings: 2

2 cups of uncooked fusilli
1/2 large red onion
3 cloves garlic - smashed
2 red/orange bell peppers
12-15 green olives
1/2 cup of red wine
2 T cider vinegar
1 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
red pepper flakes to suit your palate :)
2 T crumbled feta cheese

Heat the oven to broil.

Cook the fusilli in water heated to a roiling boil per directions.

Slice the bell peppers into quarters and broil face down for 10-12 minutes till the skins are blackened and crinkly.

In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a pan and saute the onions for 4-5 minutes.
Add the smashed garlic and saute for a few more minutes till the onions turn translucent.
Turn down the heat to simmer and add the vinegar and wine.

Peel the bell peppers (pretty easy to yank the skin off once they're broiled) and slice them long.
Add the bell pepper to the onion mixture and stir for 4-5 minutes.
Add chopped olives, salt and pepper and stir for a minute before taking off the heat.

Toss the vegetables with the pasta, season with red pepper flakes and feta cheese.


Perfect entry for Presto Pasta Nights organized by Ruth :)

Fusilli e Bean Casserole

Today felt like a non-desi comfort food day. Hmm ... mac'n'cheese? No, I was craving something more nutritious than that! :)

After poking around several cookbooks, I finally embarked on making a veggie-filled pasta bake. As the fusilli cooked, I started gathering the makings for the base. A bunch of green beans were on hand, a ripe'n'ready-to-burst tomato was waiting too. And maybe some olives?

Fusilli e Bean Casserole

3 cups fusilli - cooked al dente
1 large ripe vine tomato
1/3 lb green beans - parboiled
10 green olives
1/2 cup nonfat milk
2 T all purpose flour
1/3 cup light havarti cheese - grated
2-3 t chopped chives
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs (or) crumbled flatbread, which was all I had on hand
red pepper flakes
salt to taste

After pureeing the peeled tomato, I added the minced olives in. The next step was to make a nonfat white sauce by roasting the flour in a dry pan over heat and adding the milk, constantly stirring to avoid clumping. I figured chives might give the sauce a good flavor - especially since I was skipping onions and garlic this time! It only took about 2-3 minutes to get a sauce consistency - I mixed this into the tomato puree, added the pasta, beans and cheese. The last step was to toss the mixture with salt and red pepper flakes before pouring into a baking pan and sprinkling with the flatbread crumbs.

It only took 15 minutes of baking at 375 F to finish cooking the pasta goodness!

Pasta makes me happy!

I found this new sprouted wheat papardelle at Trader Joe's (not a day goes by without my revelling in the glory of that store!) the other day - and it looked curious enough to try out. Hmm ... hearty pasta with a nutty flavor ... I wasn't quite sure what kind of sauce that warranted - I finally just tossed the pasta with some extra virgin olive oil and added a simple artichoke garlic sauce seasoned with a generous helping of red pepper flakes. The artichoke tasted pretty good with the pasta, but I think I can do better here. The nuttiness warrants a tarter sauce - maybe a spicy marinara or even just a balsamic vinegar reduction.

The pasta ended up looking pretty boring, resulting in this almost monochromatic picture!


The pasta was decent, but the tomato salad that went with it was mucho fabuloso! I can't wait to make this again :)

Tomato Bread Salad

1 lb of sugar plum tomatoes - halved (it doesn't take that long :))
10-12 basil leaves - shredded
1/2 red onion - sliced thin
2 olive rolls (from the amazing Trader Joe's)

Cut the olive rolls into this slices and soak them in a shallow bowl of water for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, lightly saute the onions and toss them with the tomatoes and basil. Squeeze most of the water out of the rolls and shred the slices into bite size pieces. Toss these along with the tomato mix in 1 T olive oil + moscato vinegar + kosher salt + pepper. Love it!