Venetian Chicken Livers - Fegato di Pollo alla Veneziano

So! We've found a place to live, and will be moving in on November 1. My kitchen should be arriving shortly thereafter, and I am anxiously awaiting the opportunity to cook once again. Seriously, boiling eggs in an electric kettle may technically count as cooking, but crikey! What I wouldn't give for a simple skillet dinner right now...

In the interim, I've found a couple of photos in my archive from dishes we cooked earlier this summer, and so I plan to trickle those out until I'm cooking again. This one is from late June.

I apparently need to get more iron into my diet. I do take iron supplements - as much as my poor system can handle, but it's not enough to correct the serious deficit that I'm running, so I am finding ways to squeeze more red meats and offal into my diet. Yes, I know that there are plenty of vegetable sources of iron (I'm eating those too); I simply need all the iron I can get.

Liver is a rich source of easily absorbed iron, even poultry liver, so it seemed obvious to me that we should take a crack at a classic Venetian recipe for chicken livers with fettuccine. My husband was the cook this time, and I was the lucky person who simply had to show up and eat. This dish comes together very quickly, so make sure your prep is done before you start cooking.

Venetian Chicken Livers - Fegato di Pollo alla Veneziano
Adapted from Claudia Roden's Food of Italy

Serves 2

Fresh fettucini (2 servings)
225 grams fresh chicken livers, cleaned and sliced into medium-large chunks
1 - 2 shallots, sliced pole-to-pole into strips
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
pinch white pepper
3 tablespoons red (or dry white) wine (approximately)
¼ cup freshly shredded parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley

Prepare the pot with water for the pasta, and get it ready to drop the pasta (fresh pasta only takes about three minutes to cook). If you must use dry pasta, obviously start the pasta first, and adjust the timing accordingly. Warm some pasta bowls and have them standing by.

Clean and slice the livers, removing any grotty bits of sinew or connective tissue, and set aside. Slice the shallot(s) and garlic and set aside.

In a large skillet, heat the butter and the olive oil over medium-high heat until the butter foams and subsides, and then add the livers in a single layer. Sprinkle with the salt and white pepper, let them sear briefly to get a tiny bit of colour on them (about a minute). During that minute, drop your pasta into the boiling water, and make sure there's a colander or sieve ready to receive it. Give the livers a quick stir to flip them over, and push them to the outer edge of the skillet. Add the shallot strips and garlic into the bare centre of the skillet (you can add another bit of olive oil if it looks dry). Sauté briefly, and then gently stir the livers through the onion mixture. Add the wine (or a splash of vermouth) to deglaze and create a bit of a pan sauce, scraping up the bottom of the skillet. Continue to cook gently until the pasta is ready (in the other pot), and then turn off the heat under the livers.

Drain the pasta and portion into the warmed pasta bowls. Spoon the livers mixture over the pasta, being sure to pour any collected juices from the pan over each serving, and top with parmesan and parsley. Enjoy with a nice glass of wine.

If I recall correctly we utterly failed to remember to add the garlic, but it wasn't missed so it's clearly an optional ingredient (a Venetian may disagree with me). I do think that the next time I make this I might top it with a lemon gremolata, rather than just the parmesan and parsley, because I think it would beautifully - the sharpness of the lemon zest and raw garlic cutting through the richness of the dish. I'll be sure to report if that's the case.

Venetian Chicken Frisinsal

There is a wonderful, medieval attraction to the notion of tearing apart a roasted chicken with one's bare hands, and this dish can be the wonderful result.

There are quite a few recipes for this floating around, many of which appear to be derivatives of "Tagliatelle W/ Chicken From The Venetian Ghetto" from Nigella Lawson's "How To Eat" or "Tagliatelle Frisinsal" which appears in Claudia Roden's "The Book of Jewish Food" which appears to be its antecedent.

I've adjusted the name into something that makes better sense for the amendments that I've made. Gone is the Tagliatelle, because I'm using broad egg noodles instead (and less of them). Other adjustments include opting in for the parsley which Nigella uses (absent from the original), and roasting the chicken on ribs of fennel (to be discarded after), which adds a subtle perfume to the dish, and lifts the chicken off of the roasting pan.

This is a glorious recipe. It may not look terribly exciting, and it is assuredly not low-fat, but it is wonderfully fragrant and delicious, making it a beautiful comfort food sort of meal.

Venetian Chicken Frisinsal
Serves 4

1 medium chicken
3-4 stalks of fennel
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
kosher salt, as needed
1 long sprig of fresh rosemary (about 5 inches)
1/3 cup golden sultana raisins
1/2 cup pine nuts
225 grams broad egg noodles

Rub the chicken with olive oil and salt lightly on all sides. Place the chicken, breast side down, onto your roasting pan (I use a large cast iron skillet) which has been lined with enough stalks of fennel to keep the chicken elevated from the bottom of the pan. Roast at 400F for 50 minutes, then turn the chicken breast-side up, and continue to roast until the chicken is completely cooked - 20 minutes to 1/2 hour will do nicely for a 3 pound chicken. Remove the chicken from the roasting pan to a plate, and allow to cool for twenty minutes or so, until it is cool enough for you to remove the chicken from the bones with your bare hands.

While the chicken is roasting (and then cooling), soak the sultanas in a little water for about half an hour, and then drain. Toast the pine nuts until just lightly golden brown - this can be done in a dry skillet on the stovetop, and only takes a few minutes. Mince the rosemary finely, and set aside. Chop the parsley as you like it, and set aside.

While the chicken is cooling, remove the fennel stalks from the roasting pan (let the drippings on them fall back into the pan) and discard. They are stringy and tough, and now overcooked, so there's not much use for them; they have given up their flavour to the chicken juices, which is as good a fate as they could hope for. If you really need to watch your fat intake, pour all of the drippings from the chicken into a bowl, and let the fat rise to the top. Skim off some of the fat as desired. Otherwise, just leave the drippings in the skillet, add the chopped rosemary, the pine nuts, and the drained raisins to the drippings, and bring to a simmer. Next, pour any liquid that has pooled around the chicken (on its cooling plate) into the skillet with the rest of the drippings. Reduce the heat to very low and cover, while you prepare the rest.

Bring a large pot of water up to the boil (for the pasta) while you remove the meat from the chicken. Using your hands, strip the meat and skin from the bones and tear into bite-sized shreds, putting them in a large serving bowl. Be sure to use the crispy skin, as well, but any flabby skin can be discarded with the bones. When all of the chicken is shredded* (you can put the bones aside to make stock or to freeze for later use), quickly cook the pasta (do add a little salt to the water). Egg noodles only take a few minutes to cook, which is handy. Drain the noodles, or use a spider-tool to lift the noodles right from the water onto the shredded chicken meat in the bowl. Pour the sauce of drippings, raisins, rosemary and pine nuts over the top, add the parsley, and toss gently to combine.

I recommend a fresh salad with a bit of crunch, to balance the richness of this dish. Fennel & Radish Salad is about perfect with this (since you already have the fennel).

In the spirit of full disclosure, I note that I actually removed the chicken breast (but not the tender) to a separate plate, because a whole chicken's worth of meat was more than we needed for the four servings of this dish. You could, of course, increase the amount of pasta, use all of the chicken, and feed two to four more people, especially if you had a side dish or two to round it out. The chicken breast that I hived away in this instance made a lovely chicken and fennel white pizza two days later.

*When you are stripping the meat from the chicken, be sure to take the meat from the back of the chicken - especially the two lovely roundish bits referred to as "the oysters" from just above the thighs. This is the closest thing to a tenderloin on a chicken, and is a wonderful bit not to be missed. They are small, firm, intensely flavourful bits of dark chicken meat, sometimes doled out as a special favour, or harboured as a cook's treat.

Smoked Tuna Skillet Dinner

I didn't grow up with tuna noodle casserole. My mother didn't buy canned fish, and the only pasta casserole that she made was a (delicious) baked spaghetti. I was highly sensitive to fish when I was young, we considered an allergy even though it wasn't a true anaphylactic risk. It was fairly unpleasant, and when the rest of the family was having fish, I usually had a fried egg instead. Also, I hated peas with the fiery intensity of a thousand suns. I'm over both of those things now, but you can only imagine how shocked my poor mom would be, if she could see me making this dish.

The beauty of not having a childhood tradition to draw on for tuna + noodles is that I don't have any sense of nostalgia forcing my hand in terms of specific ingredients, methodology or presentation in order to get it "right." I just get to mess around with some tasty food, and share the results with you.

This is a grown-up sort of skillet dinner - the smoked tuna is quite strong, so you don't need as much of it as some other recipes might suggest. If you can't get smoked tuna, you may wish to use a little extra of the regular kind, and perhaps add a drop or two of liquid smoke to get a similar effect. This recipe was adapted from Eating Well.

Smoked Tuna Skillet Dinner

Serves 4

200 g broad German egg noodles
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced small
100 grams cremini mushrooms
2 teaspoons Mushroom Base (I use Better than Bouillon)
2 tablespoons dry Sherry
1 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 cups 1% Milk
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
160 grams Smoked Albacore Tuna
1 cup frozen green peas
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons Panko-style bread crumbs

Position rack in upper third of oven and preheat broiler.

Meanwhile, heat butter in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, mushrooms and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring often, until the onion is softened. Add sherry and cook and stir until evaporated. Shake together the milk and flour until smooth. Add milk and pepper and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. Then, stir in the dry noodles, along with an extra cup of hot water (the pan will be very full). Cook and stir until the noodles have absorbed the extra water, and are tender, and the sauce has thickened. If it starts looking too dry, add a little more water, a couple of tablespoons at a time. Stir in tuna (broken into small chunks), peas and 1/2 the Parmesan until evenly incorporated.

Sprinkle the casserole with panko and the remaining Parmesan. Broil until bubbly and lightly browned on top, 3 to 4 minutes. The broiler does dry the dish out a bit more (the one pictured is actually a little drier than I wanted it to be), so if you think it's just right going in...keep a close eye on it, or add an "insurance" tablespoon of water to loosen thing up.

There's not a lot of vegetables in this, obviously, so a nice broccoli on the side is a good idea (or tossed green salad, or other tasty plant of your choice).

Couscous with Lemon & Mint

This works as either a cold salad or as a hot side dish (add some chickpeas either way, to make it a main-course in itself). It is both very easy to make, and very quick. As you can imagine, the lemon and mint flavours conjure the mediterranean climate, so let that be your guide for choosing something to serve with it - a nice Greek salad, perhaps, or some falafel patties, or perhaps a braised lamb shank or a merguez tagine. Its low effort requirement make it perfect for either summer nights when you don't feel much like cooking (or turning on the stove), or as a last-minute way to round out a bit of leftover stew that seemed smaller than you remembered when you pulled it out of the freezer.

I recommend using any bell pepper except green, here. The red, orange, and yellow peppers are much sweeter, and complement the flavours of the mint and lemon. The green bell pepper would impart a more bitter, vegetal flavour - not necessarily a disaster, of course, but less harmonious for the dish overall.

Couscous with Lemon & Mint
Serves 4

1 cup coarse dry couscous (not Israeli style)
1 yellow bell pepper (or other sweet pepper), finely diced
1 green onion, finely sliced (white and green)
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 - 2 tablespoons good olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup fresh mint chiffonade
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/4 cups boiling water

You need to make this dish in a container with a tight fitting lid - you can either use a metal saucepan (heat the water, remove from heat, add the salt, sprinkle the couscous evenly over the surface, cover, wait), or a ceramic or tempered glass bowl with a lid (heat the water separately, pour into bowl, etc.) but if your lid is not tight-fitting, you may want to drape a heavy kitchen towel over the top. Make sure you allow room for the couscous to expand - allow at least four times as much room as couscous.

Whichever method you choose, prepare the couscous and let it stand, covered well, for about ten minutes, while you prepare your lemon, mint, green onion, and bell pepper.

Combine the lemon juice, zest, olive oil, and cumin, and whisk together as if you were making a vinaigrette. Place the chopped bell pepper into a serving bowl with the sliced green onion, and pour half of the vinaigrette over top. Prepare the mint chiffonade and set aside. When the couscous is ready, remove the lid and fluff carefully with a fork - be patient, and scrape the tines of the fork over the surface, going increasingly deeper, until you have loosened all of it. Add the fluffed up couscous to the serving bowl, and pour in the rest of the vinaigrette. Stir with a fork to combine thoroughly, letting the couscous soak up the liquid from the lemony dressing. Stir in the mint, and serve (hot), or chill for an hour or so to serve as a cold salad.

This dish is tasty whether you are eating it hot, warm, room temperature, or cold. If you are going to add chickpeas, add one cup of cooked (drained) chickpeas to the bell peppers and vinaigrette, tossing well to coat. If you are intending to serve the dish hot, you may want to heat the chickpeas up first.

I love having leftovers of this for my lunch - it packs really well, because the couscous absorbs all of the liquid, making for easy, mess-free transportation.

Summer Rolls, While We Still Can

Before I move entirely into my autumnal kitchen habits, here's one more dying-light-of-summer dish that I simply must share with you.

For years, I'd avoided summer rolls (aka salad rolls, aka fresh spring rolls), because the initial ones I'd tried were not really all that good, dry and bland, relying heavily on a giant wodge of unseasoned noodles to make up their bulk, and requiring constant, nay, desperate dipping into peanut sauce simply in order to swallow each bite. When I discovered, years later, that most summer rolls are in fact delightful treats, I felt rather foolish for avoiding them for so long.

Most of the versions you see in my neighbourhood tend to be either vegetarian or, more likely, prawn-centric, with a few veggies, a bit of (seasoned!) noodle, and a smart row of precisely lined up prawns down the centre. The dipping sauces tend to be a peanut affair (spicy if you're lucky), or nuoc cham, a Vietnamese dipping sauce made primarily of fish sauce, lime juice and rice vinegar, with some chiles and herbs thrown in. You can really use whatever dipping sauce you like - any Asian-style dumpling sauce is probably going to work fine, or plum sauce, or coconut chutney...even just painting a stripe of sriracha down the side before you dig in is going to work.

What made me actually decide to make these myself was the sudden, thunder-struck notion that coconut-lemongrass chicken would be really quite good in these. However, I've never seen such a thing for sale. The only solution was to get some rice paper wrappers, and start rolling my own. After that, I made some more, minus the chicken and coconut, and with double the vegetables (all nicely seasoned with nuoc cham, prior to rolling).

The following, consequently, is more of a general guideline, than a recipe, really. Vary them as much as you like - you're the one who is going to be enjoying them.

Lemongrass Chicken Summer Rolls

Makes 6 rolls

6 Banh trang rice wrappers
125 grams rice vermicelli, cooked
200 grams chicken breast
60 mL coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon lemongrass powder
1 carrot, shredded
8 centimetres English cucumber, matchstick cut
fresh Thai basil, shredded
fresh mint, shredded
2 tablespoons nuoc cham or lime juice with a pinch of salt

Cook the chicken in the coconut milk with the lemongrass powder. Remove the chicken from the coconut milk, and shred finely. Add the noodles into the coconut milk, and toss well to coat. Toss the cucumber and carrot with the nuoc cham, and allow to drain.

Dip one banh trang wrapper in water (or run it briefly under the tap) and immediately lay it flat on a wooden cutting board. In the bottom third of the circle, lay some of the chicken, some of the noodles, and some of the vegetables, as you would for making a burrito. Top with the shredded herbs. Cilantro is also a nice addition here.

Lift the bottom edge of the wrapper (which will now be pliable) and wrap it upward until it just covers the filling, and hold it there with one hand. Using your other hand, fold the sides inward, and then continue to roll from the bottom up until the roll is complete. Put aside on a plate and chill while you make the rest. Wrap tightly, so they hold together while you're eating them, but not so tightly that you tear the wrapper. A little practice will make them just right.

Serve with the dipping sauce of your choice - more nuoc cham, or peanut sauce are classics, but I prefer a nice, spicy, peanut-butter laced vinaigrette. You can always go crazy and have more than one, sauce, of course. Why decide?

For vegetarian/vegan summer rolls, simply omit the chicken, lemongrass, and coconut milk and increase the vegetables - you might want to add thinly sliced daikon or zucchini, or other crisp raw vegetables of your choice, to round it out. You could also add a julienne of spicy tofu. You may want to season your noodles with a little Nuoc cham (a vegetarian version, of course) if you're going all veggie. You can really put whatever you like in them.

These will keep until the next day, assuming you don't get up in the middle of the night and devour them. I'm just sayin'. Two rolls makes a good, light supper.

Meatball Macaroni with Chipotle

This dish brings together two things I adore: meatballs, and pasta. I did not grow up with spaghetti and meatballs, although I was aware of the dish as a matter of cultural immersion. Our spaghetti was always a baked affair, made in a deep pot (using soy noodles, although I didn't learn that was abnormal until I was older), and slabbed with cheese for the last few minutes in the oven. That dish is one of the first things that I learned how to cook, in fact, and I still have the laboriously written out recipe card from noting down each step as I watched my mother in the kitchen. There was plenty of beef in the recipe, but no meatballs.

Most of the pasta dishes I make these days are not baked (although there are certainly some exceptions). My macaroni and cheese is strictly stovetop, and I'm a big fan of vegetable-strewn fresh pasta using raw (or barely cooked) ingredients as an ad hoc sauce. Meatballs, on the other hand, are almost always baked. It frees you up to do other things (make a salad, drink some wine, whatever you want to do) and it guarantees beautifully round shape to the finished meatballs. So, if I am going to have meatballs with my pasta, I suppose it was a no-brainer to combine cooking methods, eventually.

Essentially, it's a two stage process. Mix up the meatballs of your choice, such as the always-popular-at-our-house Pork & Turkey Meatballs (also used to make meatloaf) and space them out in a larger-than necessary casserole dish to bake. While the meatballs are baking, mix up the pasta. In this case, I went with a Chipotle Macaroni Casserole dish that I hadn't made in a while, although I've tinkered with the settings thusly:

Chipotle Macaroni

Serves 4-6 (with meatballs)
Total Prep & Cooking time: 60 minutes

1 onion, finely minced
2 roasted red peppers
1 teaspoon chipotle powder
1-2 tablespoons unbleached flour
2 cloves of garlic, minced or crushed
2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
1-2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves
398 mL canned diced tomatoes
1 cup milk (1% is fine)
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg
3 cups grated tasty cheese
2 cups uncooked macaroni, small shells, ditali, or similarly sized pasta

Sautee an onion with a couple of roasted red peppers (rinsed, seeded, and diced), until the onion is softened slightly. Sprinkle with chipotle powder and a little flour (about a tablespoon or two) and stir in some minced garlic, and minced or pureed chipotle in adobo sauce, along with some cumin and oregano.

When the mixture starts to stick, add a 398 ml / 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes with their juice, and stir well until thick and bubbly. Add a little water if it's sticking, to loosen it up. Next, combine a cup of milk with a cup of ricotta mixed well with a beaten egg, and beat until smooth. Add to the tomato mixture and stir well. Add the tomato paste and stir again. Reduce heat to low and continue to stir until everything is well integrated. Mix in a couple of handfuls of cheese - Pepper Jack and edam went in here - and turn off heat. Taste the sauce and adjust for salt and pepper, and hot sauce (chipotle or ancho are best here).

Stir in hot, cooked pasta - approximately 4 cups of cooked macaroni or its equivalent, such as the ditali shown here. Spoon the pasta over the cooked meatballs in the casserole dish. Top with a little more cheese and bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes to half an hour, or until bubbling and browned.

Cincinnati Chili

I've never been to Cincinnati. My only points of reference for the city, I confess, are watching WKRP on tv and Cincinnati Chili (only the former of which I've experienced first hand). So, as you can see, this will be a bold adventure down chili avenue, and at the end I won't really know whether I've succeeded or not in creating an at-home version of "Cincy/Cinci Chili"; all I'll know is if I've made a tasty dinner. To be fair, that's usually my primary goal, so I'm not too worried about it.

My interest in Cincinnati Chili is based on two things: a deep appreciation of American regional cuisine, which I explore whenever possible, and a recollection of a pastitsio I once ate in Mykonos, which contains a similar combination of pasta, meat and spices, albeit without the cheddar cheese, kidney beans, or oyster crackers. I loved that dish so much, that I've tried to make a version of it before.

Ah, oyster crackers. You can't really get them here, I've discovered (unless you have an account with Sysco Restaurant suppliers, I suppose), so unless I want to visit one of the local oyster bars and clandestinely make off with a packet (or, you know, ask them nicely for an extra packet) I'm forced to either a) make my own from the dubious recipes floating around the internet (not happening today!), b) substitute soda crackers/saltines, despite numerous websites cautioning me against doing so, or c) use the also-dubious looking oyster crackers available from Carr's in the entertainment 9-variety pack.

I've opted for c) and the scant offering of suspiciously flat oyster crackers it is. For the purists, I apologize that I'm not easily able to meet the simple standard, but perhaps I can gain a little credit for not just using goldfish crackers?

My starting point was this recipe from Allrecipes, which is claimed (by a commenter, not the original poster) to be the very recipe for Skyline Chili as was posted in the newspaper in the 1970s. It seemed like a pretty good place to start. Yes, I did my reading, and understand that Empress is widely recognized as the first cincinnati chili, but at the end of the day, after all the reading, I couldn't find a version of that one available. Skyline seemed just the thing. When I eventually make it to Cincinnati, I will have to taste test Skyline, Empress, and Gold Star, just to truly understand the differences. I read a lot of recipes, and a lot of comments, and am impressed by how passionately Cincinnati folks love their chili. Food that is subject to hotly debated opinion, contested between strangers and friends alike in the quest for the perfect representative version, is always worth investigating.

I halved it, because I wasn't feeding 10 people, and I have finite freezer space, so I hope that doesn't compromise the flavours and/or textures. I also found it necessary to substitute dark cocoa powder for the chocolate (not going to the store again today), and upped the cinnamon. I use an unsalted tomato sauce, so this will likely be a bit less salty than other, more accurate versions.

So, the only remaining question was...one-way, two-way, three-way, four-way, or five-way? Which, of course, isn't a question at all; five-way, hands down. For those completely unfamiliar with this dish, it breaks down like this: one-way is just chili in a bowl. Two-way is served on spaghetti. Three-way is served on spaghetti with cheddar cheese. Four-way is three-way plus chopped onions (raw). Five-way, the ultimate version as far as I can tell, is all of the forgoing plus beans, either in the form of chili beans or kidney beans, warmed separately and added either on top of the spaghetti, or on the bare plate before the spaghetti. Well, how could I opt for anything less than the full experience? Five-way it is.

Cincinnati Chili
Adapted from Allrecipes
Serves 5

454 grams lean ground beef
4 cups filtered water
*****
200 mL unsalted tomato sauce
1 medium yellow onion, finely grated
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or crushed
1/2 tablespoon dark cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cumin (ground)
3 whole cloves
3 whole allspice berries
1 bay leaf

The night before, break up the meat into a medium-sized pot and cover with water. Bring the mixture to a low boil, and cook for about a half-hour, or until the meat is finely broken down and cooked through. Top up with more water as needed - it should be a bit watery. In fact, it looks kind of awful. That's okay, it gets better tomorrow. Cool it down, and then refrigerate overnight, in the same pot.

The day of, skim the solidified fat from the top and discard. Or make candles, or bird feeders, or whatever it is you do with tallow. Re-heat the meat and water mixture, and add everything else. About half-way through grating the onion, I couldn't hold it without risking grating my fingers, too, it was all so slippery with tear-inducing onion juice, so I wimped out and tossed the rest into the min-prep and let the sharp blades finish mincing it for me.

Simmer over a low heat for three hours, to allow time for all of the flavours to develop, adding water as necessary to keep it from drying out. The texture should be more along the lines of a pasta sauce, so it needs to stay "loose".

For five way, drain and rinse your beans, and reheat them separately in a little water. Cook up however much spaghetti you want to use - we go for smaller portions here, so a half-pound (225 ml) spaghetti gives me 4 servings, leaving one "serving" of chili leftover to make a "cheese coney" in the middle of the night. Ahem. So, beans, spaghetti (in which ever order you want to put them), topped with a full portion of the chili (1/5 of the pot), topped with finely chopped onion, and finished with a whole lot of cheddar cheese (I used sharp cheddar, because that's how I roll). Oyster crackers on the side, to be added by the various diners.

I didn't have a grater that would give me the kind of long, fine strands of cheese that I wanted, so I simply went with a fine shred. The overall effect is not the same, but it seemed a better option than using a coarser shred.

So, the verdict: The two-stage meat cooking yielded a texture that was very silky, almost fluffy, and I cannot imagine a way to get that without the lengthy cook time. The combined seasonings were incredibly tasty, although for my tastes I could have upped the allspice and clove (perhaps with a little pinch of ground spices, instead of whole), and I could have easily upped the cocoa to a full tablespoon, too. However, even exactly as written above, it was fragrant, rich, and satisfying, and a dish I'd be happy to have again. A tasty dinner, indeed.

Now I just need to get myself to Cincinnati, and check out the real deal.

Pasta Alla Mizithra

This pasta dish is almost blindingly simple, to the point of being a little...incomplete, shall we say, on its own. But oh, how tasty! I recommend pairing it with a big, colourful Greek salad, and a nice glass of wine. The salad will take longer to make than this dish.

For those of you whose only experience with mizithra is the Spaghetti with browned butter and mizithra at The Spaghetti Factory (where it is one of the tastier items on offer, as I recall), you can make this dish so easily and quickly at home that there's no need to order it out; you just need to get your hands on the cheese itself. Mizithra can be had by the chunk, or pre-grated. The pre-grated stuff is usually so fluffy and finely textured that it disappears entirely into the pasta, instead of giving you the delightful little flecks that you get when you grate it yourself. I recommend buying a small chunk, and grating it yourself, so you can get the size of shavings you prefer.

Pasta Alla Mizithra
Serves 4

250 grams long pasta of your choice (such as the linguine shown here)
1/4 cup butter
60 grams grated mizithra cheese

Melt the butter slowly (ie, over a low temperature) in a skillet or saucepan. Once the foaming stops, and the butter has melted, allow the colour to darken to a dark gold. Do not stir or disturb the sediment in the pan. Once the colour is dark gold/light brown, remove the pan from the heat. If you like a very clear browned butter, carefully pour the liquid off of the solids (and discard the solids), but I confess I like the toastiness of leaving the solids in. You can do all this while the water boils for the pasta.

Cook the pasta and drain. Toss the pasta thoroughly with the browned butter, making sure every strand is coated.

In a large serving bowl, spritz a little olive oil, then sprinkle 1/4 of the grated cheese. Layer three more times with buttered pasta and grated cheese, ending with cheese. Present at table, and toss gently while serving up portions. Finish with parsley, if you like a bit of green, and lots of black pepper.

You can see how a nice, bright vegetable salad will perk this right up. If you want to go into butter overload territory, add garlic bread on the side, too. A glass of wine will cut the richness of butter and cheese nicely. I recommend a crisp white, or a lighter bodied red - such as sangiovese, gamay noir, or cabernet franc, for example.

The portions indicated here are smaller than you'd get at a restaurant, but that's because I usually serve modest portions of pasta, in the Italian model (although I don't usually serve it as a first course for a larger meal). It's an approach that particularly makes sense for a rich dish, such as this one. If you want the "big pasta experience", I guess this would serve two people, by North American standard serving sizes.

Enjoy!

Vegetarian Lasagna

For a while, it seemed like the default vegetarian option at any pre-set or group menu at restaurants in this town was vegetarian lasagna. Not being vegetarian myself, I had more options to choose from, but I recall sitting next to any number of folks who would fork disdainfully through their entrees muttering about the general lack of anything resembling a vegetable other than tomato (in sauce form) and perhaps a sliced mushroom (if they were lucky), or mushy cube of something indeterminate, and which might have once been zucchini, or possibly bell pepper. Mostly, they were bland and unimaginative, as far as I could determine from the reactions. I avoided the dish at all costs, personally, because I never, not even once, heard anyone say that it was delicious.

But really, there are so many reasons that vegetarian lasagna could be fantastic, that I became determined to work one out. This is the vegetarian recipe that has been my staple for the past 15 years.

Notes: The idea of grated zucchini and chopped mushrooms standing in for ground meat comes from from Anne Lindsay's Lighthearted Everyday Cooking. The idea of roasted fennel comes from the now-defunct Cafe S'il Vous Plait on Robson Street (although, I'm not sure they roasted it). Mixing the cheese and egg with the spinach is a tip I stole from my sister. The rest is pretty much classic!

Vegetarian Lasagna

Serves: 8
Total prep & cooking time: 2 to 2 1/2 hours, depending on your level of organization

1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 foot-long zucchini, grated
500 grams mushrooms, button or cremini
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
796 mL canned diced tomatoes (no sodium added)
2 cups tomato sauce (no or low sodium)
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
200 grams mixed wild mushrooms
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups part-skim ricotta or 1% cottage cheese
300 grams chopped frozen spinach, thawed
1 egg
pinch grated nutmeg
9 lasagna noodles (or equivalent fresh noodles)
200 grams mozzarella, grated
1/2 cup parmesan, freshly grated
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
pinch of chile flakes
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves (less, if using powdered)
1 teaspoon dried basil leaves (or 1/4 cup fresh)

Pre-heat the oven to 400℉. Spritz a 9x13" glass baking dish lightly with cooking spray, or rub lightly with canola oil. Toss the sliced fennel bulb with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of water, and add a pinch of salt. Roast uncovered in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the fennel is completely tender. Remove from oven, scoop the fennel onto a plate or bowl, and set the oily pan aside to build the lasagna in, later. Start heating your water to boil the noodles.

In the meantime In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, the spinach (squeeze out excess water first), the egg, and the nutmeg, and mix thoroughly with a fork.

Prepare the wild mushrooms by cleaning, removing any woody stems, and slicing into large, recognizable pieces.

Use a food processor or mini-prep to finely chop (pulse) the button mushrooms until the pieces are mostly roughly the size of green lentils. In a large skillet, heat the remaining olive oil, and begin to saute the onions and garlic. Feel free to deglaze with a little splash of water or wine as you go, to keep them from sticking. Once the onions are starting to turn translucent, add the grated zucchini, and the chopped mushrooms. Stir and saute until the vegetables are tender, and any excess liquid has evaporated. Add the wild mushrooms, and stir them through. Add the salt, white pepper, chile flakes, fennel seed, and oregano, and continue to stir and saute. When the herbs are all nicely integrated in, add the diced tomatoes with their juices, the tomato paste, the tomato sauce (except for about a half-cup), and, if the mixture instantly looks too thick, a half-cup to a cup of water. Add the basil, and let the sauce cook gently, covered, over low heat, while you boil up the noodles.

Get the noodles going, and drain in a colander once just barely tender. Lay the noodles out on a cutting board or sheet, if you want to keep them from sticking to each other.

Layering time!

In your oily 9x13" baking dish, put down the reserved bit of tomato sauce, and spread it out to cover the bottom of the dish. Add three noodles to cover the sauce, and then add 1/3 of the simmered vegetable sauce, spreading it out evenly. Next, add all of the roasted fennel bulb, spreading it out into a nice even layer. Add half of the mozzarella cheese, sprinkling it over the fennel. Lay down the next three noodles. Lay down half of the remaining vegetable sauce, spreading it nice and evenly. Add the ricotta cheese and spinach mixture, carefully spooning it around the dish, and then using the back of the spoon to smooth it all into a layer. Top with the last three noodles, and the last of the sauce. Cover the top of the dish with the remaining mozzarella and the parmesan. If you like a little green, you can throw some chopped parsley in there, too.

Cover the dish with foil (spray the underside lightly with canola oil or rub it with olive oil first) and bake for 40 minutes, or until bubbling and hot. Remove from the oven and let it stand, uncovered, for about 10 minutes before you cut it, to make sure that it serves up nicely, and doesn't just slide apart. You can use that time to knock together a salad, or some garlic bread or something.

Enjoy with a nice glass of wine, and the comfort of knowing that you will eat well for days to come.

Does it take a while? Yeah. But, you can make it in advance for a dinner party, and it freezes well, too.

I'm currently contemplating a version that includes some coarsely/medium-ly chopped chickpeas somewhere in the mix, but I'm undecided if I should add them to the vegetable sauce or the cheese-and-spinach layer. I'll report back, once I've taken a crack at it.

Beef Fried Rice Noodle

(Belated) Happy Year of the Dragon! How about some 乾炒牛河?

This was the very first dish I had in a Chinese restaurant, and I both adore it and hold it to high standards. It's a tricky one to be sure - careful handling is needed to ensure that the noodles do not become either greasy or mushy. It's also often overloaded with bean sprouts, which puts a lot of people off it entirely, but I don't mind bean sprouts, actually. There's none in the picture simply because I don't tend to keep them around generally, and I didn't remember to pick some up on my way home from work. The loss is negligible, really, especially if you serve the dish with some nice gingered broccoli. It really does need a vegetable on the side, in my books, to feel like a meal.

Now, it should be noted, that while I mentioned that I am picky about this dish, my version includes an ingredient which is not usually found in it (black bean sauce), but I do enjoy the depth of flavour that it brings, so I'm keeping it. Since I use a low sodium version of soy sauce, my dish is not as darkly coloured as some, so if you want a darker overall look, substitute some dark soy sauce in the sauce mixture. Do keep in mind that this is a very sodium-intense dish, though - a little less is probably better for you.

Now, I suspect some of you may be saying "wait a minute! She's got "convertible to vegan" in her tags!" Yep. To convert this dish to vegan, all you need to do is use a combination of sliced mushrooms and/or fried tofu (atsu-age) instead of the beef, and a vegan-friendly sweetener (such as agave). It's still going to be delicious, but it might need a new name.

As for Gluten-Free? Simply ensure you are using one of the GF versions of soy sauce and black bean sauce (or skip the black bean sauce and use a little extra soy sauce in that case, right at the end).

Beef Fried Rice Noodle
Serves 4 (as part of a meal)
Total Prep & Cooking Time: 45 minutes

2 tablespoons peanut oil, divided
200 grams thinly sliced beef
600 grams fresh wide rice noodle (ho fun)
1 cup trimmed bean sprouts
1 medium yellow onion
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 green onion

Marinade for beef
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine (or dry sherry)

Sauce
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon black bean sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon beef concentrate

Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl, and add the beef, stirring well to make sure it is thoroughly coated.

Wash and dry the sprouts (trim the dragging tails, if you like). Wash the green onions and cut into matchstick-lengths (full disclosure - in the picture above, I erred by forgetting to prep the green onions, so I sliced them thinly and added them as a garnish, after the picture was taken). Slice the yellow onion (pole to pole) in long slices.

Combine the sauce ingredients in a measuring cup and set aside.

Separate the noodles onto a plate - if they are really stuck together, place them in a large pot of almost-boiled water (the heat should be off) and let them sit for about five minutes, giving a stir occasionally, until they separate. Drain immediately into a colander. If the noodles separate nicely without the soaking step, give them a quick microwave-zap for a minute or two, until they are hot. This will prevent over stirring later.

Heat a tablespoon of peanut oil in a large non-stick skillet over high heat. Add the garlic, then the bean sprouts and green onions, fry for a minute or two, then remove them to a warm plate. Lift the beef slices out of the marinade, and quickly stir fry them until they are mostly cooked. Remove the beef to the plate with the bean sprouts. Add the second tablespoon of peanut oil, and quickly stir fry the onions until just tender-crisp - they should be translucent, but not too floppy. Quickly add the hot noodles, the reserved marinade from the beef, and the sauce ingredients, and stir and toss the noodles until thoroughly coated and hot throughout. Add the beef and sprouts back into the pan, and continue to stir and toss until everything is nice and integrated. Serve hot, with extra soy sauce and/or chile oil on the side (and a nice green vegetable, too, ideally).

Enjoy!

Ham Rotini Casserole

This is one of those dishes that grew out of a sudden desire for a creamy pasta, which is actually a pretty common occurrence in my household. In this case, there was also a coincidental need to use up some yoghurt. For some reason, ham seemed to be the perfect thing to tie it all together, since I wasn't feeling particularly in a stroganoff-y mood. Originally there were supposed to be mushrooms, as well (some creminis which also needed using up), but I completely forgot about them until I was putting the pan into the oven, and it was simply too late.

The sauce is very creamy, and a little cheesy without feeling like a cheese pasta, perhaps because the yoghurt gives it a little tanginess that cuts through the richness. While this is no health food item, with salty ham and rich yoghurt, it is still better for you than most big ol' plates of pasta at a casual restaurant, so that's some additional comfort for a comfort food dinner.

Ham Rotini Casserole
Serves 4

200 grams rotini
125 grams boneless cooked ham, diced
1 2/3 cups 1% Milk
2 tablespoons butter
1/8 cup unbleached flour
1 teaspoon chicken base (such as Better than Bouillon)
2 garlic cloves
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan Cheese
1 cup plain, thick yoghurt (such as Liberte Mediterranee)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (230 degrees C). Bring a pot of water to boil and cook the rotini according to the package directions (until it is just a little underdone).

In a large skillet, melt butter and stir in flour until smooth. Gradually add milk, bouillon paste, salt, garlic, and pepper. Stir all together and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring until thick and bubbly. Reduce heat; add ham cubes, cheese and yoghurt. Stir until cheese is melted. Add the drained pasta, and stir through to combine. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until heated through.

Optional topping: Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in saucepan and stir in breadcrumbs and some finely chopped parsley. Sprinkle crumb mixture over casserole before baking. I was totally going to do that, but then (again) completely forgot. Seems to have been my day for forgetting things.

I debated trying to shoe-horn some vegetable matter into the casserole, but in the end decided that it really wanted to be a very simple sort of dish rather than a one pot meal (as fond of those as I am). I decided in the end to make a tossed green salad with rather a lot of chopped veggies in it - cucumbers, bell peppers, radishes, tomatoes, etc., partly to make up for the indulgence of the pasta, but mostly to give dinner a little freshness and crunchiness, both things that don't exactly go with the creamy hammy territory.

This dish was immediately voted "into the book", about two bites into dinner. The next time I've got some yoghurt to use up, I'll definitely be thinking of this one.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Ah, the special treats of summer that truly are still seasonal! Seize them when you can, or wait a full year for another taste.

I encountered garlic scapes last summer, in my friend Willie's garden. He had us over to dinner, and, after remarkably little slave labour helping to pick the scapes, served us some of his famous handmade fettuccine with garlic scape pesto. He also gave us a giant bag of garlic scapes to take home and play with ourselves.

Unfortunately for all of us, the scapes had gotten a bit on the large size, with the attendant increase in fibrousness. We had to discard a certain amount of each scape, and had to sieve the two dishes that we made - a simple pesto to top pork tenderloin pintxos, and a cream soup. The flavour was wonderful, but lordy, was it work.

This year, we were fortunate to receive scapes again, younger ones this time, from our bacon-curing friend, Rodney. They were much thinner and shorter, and considerably more tender, despite having spent some quality time in the fridge before we got around to using them. We went with pesto on fettuccine, because we liked it so much the first time. This pesto recipe was likely a bit different from the first one we had, but it turned out very well. We used fresh fettuccine from The Ravioli Store, because it is lovely stuff.

Garlic Scape Pesto
Serves 4 - 6

1 cup garlic scapes, finely chopped
2 tablespoons ground almonds
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cups fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan Cheese

Place the finely chopped scapes into a blender or small food processor, along with the almonds and basil. Pulse a couple of times, then add the salt and olive oil. Pulse and then puree until smooth. Taste it, and see if it wants the lemon juice. If so, add the juice and pulse it through. If you are going to freeze some of the pesto, put that portion aside now. If you are using it right away, stir in the cheese and you are good to go: Add to freshly cooked, drained pasta, dab onto any savory appetizer, really, or use as a pizza sauce (that's the likely fate of the bit that's in the freezer, actually). You can also stir it into a soup (white bean, for example...ooh, now I want to try that!), or as a sandwich spread, or use it pretty much as you would use any other pesto.

Sesame Peanut Noodles

I've made this dish before. I've even posted about it before (see post). Hmmm, that must mean that it's actually summer, not that you can tell from the weather. Still, this salad is delicious no matter what the weather.

This is a Nigella recipe, and it really only needs minor tweaks to suit my needs. You can see the official version of the recipe here, and my version below.

The first time I made this dish, I added some chicken to round it out as a meal, but in all honesty, it doesn't need anything added to it. It does make a lovely side dish, though, so if you've got a few skewers of shrimp on the grill and you're looking for a low-maintenance make-ahead side, this is definitely a great place to start.

Sesame Peanut Noodles
Adapted from Nigella Express, by Nigella Lawson

Dressing
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons sambal oelek (or sriracha)
100 grams smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons honey (use agave syrup for vegan)

Salad
125 grams snow peas, sliced thinly, diagonally
1 red pepper, julienned
125 grams zucchini, julienned
2 green onions, finely sliced
500 grams Chinese-style steam noodles

Garnish
Toasted sesame seeds
Cilantro

Directions are almost superfluous, here. Slice the vegetables, cook the noodles, and drain them, shocking them with cold water to stop the cooking process. Combine the dressing ingredients and beat until smooth, and then toss the noodles, the vegetables, and the dressing together.

You can vary the vegetables, of course. I replaced the bean sprouts in the original with julienned zucchini, and now I can't imagine making it any other way. Using a variety of peppers might add an extra splash of colour, too - combine red, yellow, and orange pepper strips for a little extra visual punch. Radish or jicama strips might also go nicely in here.

Having made this a couple of times, it should be said that you simply must use your hands to effectively combine everything. in the final assembly stage, otherwise, no matter how big your bowl and how dextrous your fork-handling, you will not get the dressing and vegetables properly integrated throughout the noodles. With fingers, though - quick business.

Another note is regarding peanut butter: use the very best tasting peanut butter, please. This is not the way to use up what my family calls "dried up wrinkly old" peanut butter, aka the desiccated natural peanut butter in the bottom of the jar, which I did in my last posting of this recipe. I'm currently raving about Nuts to You smooth organic peanut butter, which is by far the best I've ever tasted (plus, it has an awesome ingredient list: peanuts). Everything I make with that peanut butter is somehow amazing!

The salad travels well for lunches, too, although it seems to like a little extra soy sauce to perk it up a bit.

Cauliflower Mac & Cheese: smarter than the box

When Kraft came out with its plan to add cauliflower to boxed Kraft Dinner (Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, to my non-Canadian readers), it seemed like a good idea, even if I'm not a big supporter of Kraft generally. It's nothing new, in one sense, as clever parents have been pureeing vegetables and hiding them in pasta dishes for a very long time. Plus, cauliflower and cheese go so very well together, and macaroni and cheese go so very well together, so getting all three into the pot together seems fairly sensible.

The Kraft Canada website advises that there is a half-serving of vegetables in each helping (ie. recommended serving size of 50 grams, or 3/4 cup prepared) of "KD Smart." The vegetable content therefore seems pretty minimal, for all of the fuss - Yoni Freedhoff at Weighty Matters does a nutritional comparison of the "smart" version against the original product, with scathing commentary highlighting (amongst other things) the extra sodium, saturated fat, and sugar that it apparently takes to make this product.

To revisit the idea that cauliflower, cheese, and pasta should all get along, you don't need to go with a heavily processed product. You need cauliflower. It's even easy! You simply add (finely) chopped up cauliflower to the noodles in the last few minutes of their cooking time, whatever recipe you are using, and carry on. If you are determined to use a boxed macaroni, you can still add cauliflower yourself, for much lower cost and greater benefit. The absolute minimum benefit is that you can add a lot more cauliflower to each plate without having to increase the amount of cheese sauce you're using (try it - unless you're adding an entire head of cauliflower, there should be enough sauce). You can certainly make sure you're getting more than a mere half-serving of cauliflower.

Yeah, you can see (and, to a degree, taste) the cauliflower. Cauliflower is good! It's even better with cheese! You can have a larger portion of the dish because it has a lot of vegetable mass mixed right in. Because cauliflower's white surface picks up the colour of the cheese, it's a very satisfying plate to look at - even though you know there's cauliflower in there, it looks - to the quick glance, if your pieces are small enough - just like a big ol' plate of cheesy pasta.

I made this using an all-cheddar version of my Skillet Macaroni & Cheese aka "Evapomac" recipe (see recipe here). It made four generous helpings - one each for the two of us at dinner, with roasted asparagus for bonus veggie points, and one each for lunch the following day. I used about four cups of finely chopped cauliflower (half a large head), so it was well over a "serving" of cauliflower in each portion. I didn't add extra cheese or milk or anything to stretch the sauce, and I didn't need to.

This version is not really all that sneaky. You can see the cauliflower, and you can taste it, although the cheese is the dominant flavour. If you really hate cauliflower, this is not going to work for you. You could also use broccoli, but because broccoli is a little bitter, you might want to blanche it separately first, which is more work, albeit not by much. You could also use some leftover roasted cauliflower, which would likely be a little sweeter from the roasting process, and might taste a little less like the brassica vegetable that it is. If you're sensitive to the somewhat bitter aftertaste of the cabbage family, that might be the way to go.

So, thanks for the idea, Kraft. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to try adding cauliflower to my mac and cheese before. I'm not going to buy your product, but I'm going to totally run with this idea. I may not add cauliflower every time I make my macaroni and cheese, but I'm definitely adding it to the options.

Hamburger Stroganoff Skillet Dinner

First things first: this is, obviously, not a true stroganoff, nor is it pretending to be one. Instead, it's a quick weeknight dinner that only uses one pan and doesn't take a whole lot of time. Bonus points that it is made from ingredients that I'm likely to have on hand. Even better, it has a surprisingly modest caloric payload, which (according to an online recipe calculator) is approximately 400 calories per serving, somewhere in the vicinity of 1 1/2 to 2 cups. Add some fresh steamed veggies for a side dish, and you're licking the plate (and patting your satisfied belly) for under 500 calories. This dish is, I presume, what Hamburger Helper wants to be. Only better, I think, and with less sodium, which means it doesn't send you desperately, repeatedly to your water glass until your insides slosh when you walk. Comfort food!

Hamburger Stroganoff Skillet Dinner

Serves 4

450 grams extra lean ground beef
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 cup finely diced onions
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
200 g broad/wide egg noodles
1 1/2 teaspoons Better than Bouillon Beef Base (or substitute beef broth for the boiling water below)
3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt (I use Liberte's 0% fat)
2 cups sliced mushrooms of your choice
2 tablespoons unbleached flour
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup cold water
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp cornstarch

In a 12" non-stick skillet, fry the beef, stirring occasionally until well browned. Sprinkle the dry mustard and the salt over the meat and stir again. Add the onions and garlic, cooking and stirring until softened and a bit translucent. Add mushrooms to skillet, and a splash of water to make sure nothing sticks. Add the noodles, beef base, Worcestershire sauce, and boiling water, stir well and bring to a simmer. Shake the half cup of cold water in a lidded container with the flour, until smooth. Add to the skillet and stir well until thoroughly incorporated and gravy starts to thicken up, and then cook over medium heat until noodles are half-done (about 5 minutes). Combine yogurt with cornstarch (so it doesn't break and curdle) in a small bowl and beat with a spoon or whisk until perfectly smooth. Add yogurt mixture to skillet. Cook stirring until mixture thickens to a creamy coating and the noodles are fully cooked.

A crisp salad would be another lovely way to round this out.

Feel Good Noodle Bowl

I've been sitting on this pic for a while, as it trickily sneaked under my radar when I was processing a large number of photos.

This is wonderfully comfort-foodish, even if your childhood didn't include Chinese steamed noodles, miso gravy, or tolerable vegetables. If you like any of these things now, this will be a go-to staple of those nights when you really feel like something that is simple, healthy, and tasty.

I can't even call it a recipe. It takes about three minutes to cook up some fresh Chinese steamed (or "steam") noodles (around here, they are sold in the produce dept. of most major grocery stoes), or other fresh noodles, dole them into bowls and top with freshly steamed vegetables of your choice. Drizzle with sauce, and devour.

I like snow peas (mangetouts) here, too, and chunks of steamed or roasted yam. You could try fennel bulb, red bell peppers, cubes of smoked tofu, baby corn, or sake-steamed shiitake mushrooms.

You can also switch things up to suit yourself - this is an eminently customizable dish. You could swap the miso gravy for a nice peanuty sate sauce, or perhaps even a little leftover curry sauce that you might happen to have in your freezer. You could change the noodles to your favourite type of rice, for a potentially (depending on the sauce, of course) gluten-free version. Even the sesame seeds are optional.

Best of all, once you are deliciously full, you can feel confident that you've gotten most of your vegetable needs down the hatch, while feeling like you're getting away with something. A little fresh fruit for dessert, should you be so lucky, and you're done.

Salad Tweaking (Pasta Salad Primavera)

If you have check out my Reviews blog, Much Ado About Diet, you'll see the test recipe for Dilled Pasta Salad with Spring Vegetables from the newly released Mayo Clinic Diet & Journal. As noted, we like all of the ingredients, and so we enjoyed the salad, but we also identified some issues for this recipe in terms of its end result on the plate, as well as the overall health scorecard. So I decided to give it a little salad makeover.


Right away, we were surprised by the amount of oil in the original dressing recipe. 1/4 cup seemed rather high for the amount of salad to be dressed and, in fact, it delivered an uncomfortably oily result. In the revised recipe below, we cut the amount of fat in half, using only two tablespoons of olive oil. That took care of the excessive greasiness, and still easily provided enough dressing to adequately season the salad.

The second thing we noted was that the use of both asparagus and green bell pepper gave an overall bitter quality to the entire salad, not to mention contributing to a rather monotone appearance. The few cherry tomatoes did break up the green and white pasta-scape, but left me thinking that the whole dish could benefit from more colour, and more natural vegetable sweetness. I switched out the green pepper for orange and red bell peppers, which are much sweeter and do not have that unripe bitter quality of the green.


I also felt that the amount of pasta could really support a much greater quantity of vegetable matter, allowing for larger portions that really only increased the fresh vegetable intake of any serving. More vegetables is generally considered an improvement, health-wise, so I increased all of the feature vegetables: 2 more asparagus stalks, an extra half bell pepper, extra tomatoes (the exact number is going to depend on the size of tomato you choose).

Finally, I thought the amount of fresh herb could use a boost, so I roughly doubled the chopped herbs. In the second iteration, I used tarragon instead of dill, but that was simply because I had it handy, and it plays well with the same vegetables.

I think the final salad was more visually appealing (the change of noodle was strictly due to availability at the time) with lots of colours and a nice balance between the astringent asparagus, the sweet peppers, and the acidity of the tomatoes. The flavours were bright, the pasta tasted seasoned, but not greasy, and this recipe has earned a place in my spring and summer repertoire. It's versatile, vegan, stores well in the fridge for a day or two, and is about perfect for potlucks or picnics.

Pasta Salad Primavera
adapted from The Mayo Clinic Diet & Journal
Serves 4

3 cups uncooked short pasta, such as rotini
10 asparagus stalks
1 orange bell pepper
1/2 red bell pepper
2 green onions
10 - 12 cocktail tomatoes

Dressing
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar (or white balsamic vinegar)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
large pinch kosher salt
black pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh green herbs of your choice (e.g. tarragon, dill, basil, or parsley)

Trim the asparagus and slice into approximately two-centimeter chunks. Dice the peppers into medium-small dice. FInely slice the green onions. Cut the tomatoes as needed - quarters for strawberry tomatoes, halves for cherry tomatoes, and whole for grape.

Stir the dressing together while the pasta boils.

Drop the pasta into boiling, lightly salted water and cook until just tender. For the last two minutes of cooking time, add the asparagus to the pot of boiling pasta. When finished, drain and plunge the pasta and asparagus into ice water to stop the cooking process and cool it down. Rinse with fresh, cold water until all the pasta is cool to the touch. Drain well, shaking to get rid of any excess water.

In a large serving bowl, combine the chopped raw vegetables and dressing. Add the well-drained pasta and asparagus and toss so that the dressing gets evenly distributed. Serve right away, or chill until needed.

Spicy Peanut Pasta

I have only been to The Foundation restaurant once, having been previously put off by stories of horrific service and, frankly, the dish-naming conventions (which I still find monumentally irritating). The service we got was fine, and the food...there was the real surprise. Excellent. Significantly superior to, for example, The Naam, to which it is frequently compared. However, I am not here to write a restaurant review. The dish that I ordered that night was called "Spicy Peenut" (sic). It appeared to contain things that I like, so I ordered it, and liked it so much that I immediately started conspiring over how to make it myself. It was a filling and satisfying dish, and I had to take some of it home. It actually re-heated fairly well, too.

Several weeks later, I decided to take a stab at it. The dish above is the result and, while it is not a dead-ringer, it was certainly a comparable and delicious rendition. I googled around to see if there were any recipes for it online, and came upon an entry for the sauce from Everybody Likes Sandwiches, and I had a good long look at her version before drafting my own.

Here it is:

Spicy Peanut Pasta with Cauliflower & Spinach

Serves 2
Total Time to Cook & Prep: 30 minutes

225 grams rotini pasta
1/2 head of cauliflower, cut into florets
150 grams homestyle fried tofu (atsu-age), cut into triangular slices
3 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped
1/4 cup roughly chopped roasted peanuts
2 green onions, sliced

Sauce

1/3 cup natural peanut butter
200 mL coconut milk
1 - 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sambal oelek
1 teaspoon ginger powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
dash of salt (to taste - you may need more if you are using unsalted peanut butter or light soy sauce)

Prepare the pasta in plenty of boiling, lightly salted water. About 5 minutes from the end of the pasta's cooking time, add the cauliflower florets, and continue to cook until pasta is done and florets are tender.

Meanwhile, in a high-sided, 12" skillet, fry the tofu slices until golden in a little vegetable oil, and set aside (this step is optional, actually). Combine all of the sauce ingredients in the emptied skillet, and stir over low heat until integrated. Taste and adjust for seasoning. If the mixture seems thicker than desirable in a pasta sauce, add a little of the hot pasta water, about 1/4 cup, until you reach the desired consistency. Turn heat to its lowest setting.

Add the tofu slices back into the skillet, and stir gently. Use a wire skimmer to remove the pasta and the cauliflower from the boiling water as soon as it is ready, and add directly to the skillet with the sauce. Stir gently, again adding a little pasta water if necessary to thin the sauce. Add the spinach and stir through carefully. Plate up in large pasta bowls, and garnish with chopped peanuts and green onions.

This dish is a great reminder that vegan food is neither boring nor inherently tasteless. It's definitely getting a return engagement at our place.

For What Ails You (and Me): Chicken Alphabet Soup

Big surprise, it's soup again.

I am constitutionally averse to tossing out the bones of a roasted chicken. Even if I don't have any immediate need for soup or stock, I would feel too wretched about discarding good food to allow myself to simply bag them up and put them in the garbage. At the very least, if completely knackered, I'll wrap them well and toss them into the freezer for future efforts. I inherited this behaviour from my mother, whom I cheerfully blame for a lot of my culinary quirks.

In the throes of the latest rounds of cold and 'flu and other things that go "sneeze" in the night (as well as cough, *snork*, hack), I decided it was time to put some culinary prescriptions into play. After all, isn't scientific investigation itself proving the value of a good homemade vat of chicken soup? Is it called "Jewish Penicillin" for nothing?

Frankly, even if it contains no medicinal value whatsoever, it counts as fluids (always a plus for the ill and infirm), and is both warming and comforting. Really, there's no downside at all, other than that you have to feel well enough to actually make it.

Fortunately, it's not hard.

I bought a free-range, organic chicken from the market, and roasted it up for dinner. We ate the choicest selections with some creamy Parmesan orzo and some broccoli and when the chicken had cooled sufficiently after dinner, I pulled the remaining meat from the bones and set it aside in the fridge. I poured off the accumulated juices and fat from the cast iron frying pan (the vessel in which I always roast my chickens) into a container in the fridge, and then bundled up the skin and bones. I wasn't nearly well enough to begin stock making at that point.

The next morning was Sunday, which meant that I could take my time. I simmered the bones with filtered water, bay leaves, a few sprigs of fresh thyme, a carrot, a bit of celery, a quartered onion, and some garlic. I didn't salt it, because there was already salt clinging to the skin, and you can always add more salt later. I brought the whole pot up to the barest of simmers, and let it carry on unmolested for a couple of hours, checking periodically to ensure that it wasn't boiling (which gives you a cloudy, opaque stock). Finally, I scraped away the chicken fat from the reserved drippings (reserve for later uses) and added the gelatinized dark goodness of the accumulated roast chicken juices into the stock.

When it was finished, I cooled it with the bones in the stock, then fished them out and strained the stock. One roasting chicken gave me about six cups of stock, but your mileage may vary depending on the size of your chicken.

From there, it was simple to assemble a classic comfort food. I still had some alphabet pasta left from my Alphabet Soup endeavor, so I went with that. The rest of the ingredients were, essentially, the same flavours that went into the soup. There's a reason for that - they are quite delicious. However, in the soup-making stage, they are cooked only until tender, not until exhausted. Simple soup-making: saute your aromatic vegetables and herbs in a little fat (the roast-rendered chicken fat, in this case), and once they are edging towards tender, add your stock. Add the pasta, bring it up to a gentle simmer, and once the pasta is cooked, add the reserved chicken meat, which you have chopped into soup-sized pieces.

Did I get better faster? Maybe. Did I feel better? Immediately!

Skillet Lasagna

Who doesn't like the classic flavours of lasagna? Unfortunately, it's a time consuming dish to make, and not really suitable for weeknights, although if you make two when you do take the trouble, you can freeze one and whip it out at a moment's notice (and an hour in the oven). Fortunately, it's really simple to make a delicious skillet dinner that riffs on the same flavours, and even relies on layering to achieve its goal: a lasagna-like experience in about 30 minutes (if you're motivated), using a skillet and your stovetop. Perfect for weeknights, especially if you want to take some leftovers for your lunch the next day. Assuming, of course, that there are leftovers (you can always increase the chances of leftovers by adding a salad and some garlic bread).

This can even be a quite healthy dish, if you use lean meats, and go with a more moderate approach to the cheese. I don't add oil to fry the meat, as it's not really necessary if you have a good non-stick or cast-iron pan. If the meat starts to catch too much on the pan, you can always splash a little dry vermouth or white wine (or water, of course) to zap the heat for a moment and loosen things up.

Skillet Lasagna

(Adapted from America's Test Kitchen)
Serves 4
Total Prep & Cooking Time: 30 – 45 minutes

1 lb meatloaf mix or any lean ground meat
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
Salt, as needed
½ teaspoon ground white pepper
pinch red pepper flakes
10 curly-edged lasagna noodles, broken into 1½ inch lengths
28 oz can diced tomatoes plus extra water (see directions)
1 cup tomato sauce
¾ cup whole milk ricotta cheese, optional
¼ cup minced fresh basil
2 – 3 cups fresh spinach, chopped
½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated, (plus extra for serving)

Pour the diced tomatoes, with their juice, into a four-cup measuring cup. Add enough water to the tomatoes to make 4 cups in total.

In a 12 inch non-stick skillet, break up the ground meat with a wooden spoon and fry over medium-high heat until it begins to brown. Add the onion and ½ tsp salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook until fragrant, about 15 seconds. If you are using optional seasonings (see below), add them now.

Sprinkle the noodle pieces evenly over the meat. Gently pour the diced tomatoes with their added water and tomato sauce over the pasta. Cover and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to simmer, until the pasta is tender, about 20 minutes. You may peek! If any noodles are sticking out too far, push them back under. (The sauce should look watery after 15 minutes of cooking. If dry, add up to ¼ cup additional water to loosen the sauce.)

Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in spinach and ½ cup Parmesan. Season with salt and black pepper to taste. Dot heaping tablespoons of ricotta over the noodles. Cover the skillet and let stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with the basil and serve with the extra Parmesan on the side.

Seasoning Options:
Add any or all of the following seasonings: ½ teaspoon dried oregano leaves (not powder); 1 teaspoon fennel seed; ½ teaspoon dried basil leaves

Mushroom variation:
Add 6 large mushrooms, sliced or diced, once the onion is softened. Continue to cook over medium-high for about five minutes more before proceeding.

Further notes:

Because I found the original seasoning to be quite plain (despite the chile flakes) I add all of the seasoning options above, which give it that really classic familiar taste. I highly recommend the fennel seeds, particularly.

I confess that I don't usually go with the ricotta cheese, though it does make the dish a little more hard-core lasagna-esque. I don't tend to have ricotta on hand, and it feels a little tacked on, to be honest. Instead, I took an idea from my mother's baked spaghetti, and lay strips of provolone over the top just after stirring the spinach through, and covering until the cheese is melted (as shown above).

Finally, if you suddenly discover that you don't have that box of lasagna noodles that you thought you had, 200 grams of farfalle work beautifully in the dish, although the overall effect as a "lasagna" is kind of shot, at that point.