Minestrone Soup

Needs a bit of tweaking. Didn't have the tomato paste so broth was a bit watery. But threw in a rind of parmesan to cook some extra cheesey richness into it and that I will do again.

Ingredients: 

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 6 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1 cup thinly sliced Savoy cabbage
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped basil
• 2 large stalks of celery, sliced
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 1 can chopped tomatoes, with their liquid
• 1 cup canned chickpeas, drained
• 1 cup dried fusilli pasta
• 1 can cannellini or white beans, drained
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Method: 

In a large stockpot, heat oil over medium high heat. Add garlic and onions and cook until translucent. Add broth, cabbage, tomato paste, parsley, basil, celery, carrots, bay leaf, and tomatoes with their juice and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Add chickpeas, pasta, and beans and simmer for another 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. 

Ladle soup into bowls and serve with Parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top.

Viv's Birthday Lunch

For my girl's first bash, I did a simple lunch for the family. Viv had hummus, prunes, cucumber and noodles, but the rest of us had chickpea bruschetta, a green salad and two kinds of lasagna. I made almost everything the day before and just popped the lasagnas in the oven once everyone arrived. It was the lowest-stress cooking for 12 people I've done yet. Recipes follow, plus notes on what I'd tweak for next time.

Roasted Chickpea Bruschetta

2 cans chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans) drained
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 tablespoons chopped parsley
3/4 cup roughly chopped olives (i used a mix of some cheap regular old black olives plus some capers)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
olive oil
salt
pepper

Spread the chickpeas and whole cloves of garlic on a baking sheet, drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and mix it all up. Roast in an oven preheated at 450 for 20 minutes or so, or until golden brown. Chop garlic. In a large bowl, mix with chopped parsley, olives, garlic, and balsamic. Serve on toasted slices of baguette.

*I don't think I'll make this version of chickpea bruschetta again. It was too dry and the roasting made the chickpeas into had little nuggets that didn't have a prayer of staying on the bread. Needed more tang and acidity. Maybe next time I''ll ad some tomatoes and use more pungent olives.

***

My Winging-It Red Lasagna

1 jar of TJ's tomato and basil marinara sauce (this is a good sauce without sugar or vinegar)
8 lasagna noodles
1 lb. ricotta cheese
1 egg
2 cups fresh, baby spinach leaves
1 1/2 c freshly grated mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, if baking right away. Boil lasagna noodles until done. Drain and toss with a little bit of olive oil to prevent them from sticking together. In a separate bowl beat egg and add ricotta cheese. Mash together and stir until well combined. Cover the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with a layer of sauce. Then add noodles (4). Top noodles with 1 cup of spinch leaves. Add ricotta mixture, dotting it over the spinach layer and gently smoothing it out to create an even layer. Add another layer of noodles (4). Add the rest of sauce and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove cover and bake for 15 more minutes until done. If assembling anf refrigerating, overall bake time will increase by about 15 minutes.

**
This next one ended up being quite laborious, but worth it. I had never mae a bechamel sauce before, so now I feel like I've earned some major cred as a home cook for having made one. Thanks Mario Batali for the web guidance. And thanks Jeff for whisking constantly the final 10 minutes after my arm gave out. This lasagna is also notable for perking up a not-so-special Viognier I ha bought for cooking and ended up drinking with the leftovers. I lightened up the recipe I followed, but it still produced a rich, creamy lasagna.

Artichoke Lasagna

12 lasagna noodles
2 jars of TJ's artichokes, quartered
1/2 c pine nuts
1/2 large white onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 c dry white wine
salt and white pepper to taste
3 t fresh minced thyme
1 c freshly grated pecorino romano cheese
3 T butter
3 T olive oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, if baking right away. Boil lasagna noodles until done. Drain and toss with a little bit of olive oil to prevent them from sticking together. In a large pan over medium heat, heat butter and olive oil. Add onion and garlic. Stir and cook until onion is translucent. Add artichokes and thyme and saute 5 minutes more. Add wine and salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, make the bechamel sauce.
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Bechamel sauce

5 T butter
4 T flour
4 c milk, I used 2%
2 t salt
1/2 t freshly ground nutmeg

In a medium saucepan, heat the butter over medium-low heat until melted. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Over medium heat, cook until the mixture turns a light, golden sandy color, about 6 to 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a separate pan until just about to boil. Add the hot milk to the butter mixture 1 cup at a time, whisking continuously until very smooth. Bring to a boil. Cook 10 minutes, stirring constantly, then remove from heat. Season with salt and nutmeg, and set aside until ready to use.

--

To assemble lasagna, butter a 9 x 13 baking pan. Line the bottom with a layer of noodles. Follow it with béchamel sauce, artichokes, and some grated cheese, and repeat the order, until all is used up, divvying things out so the last layer is béchamel, cheese, and artichokes. (Made two complete layers, plus an additional top layer of noodes, béchamel and cheese. Bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove cover and bake for 15 more minutes until done. If assembling anf refrigerating, overall bake time will increase by about 15 minutes.

Pasta with Butternut Squash and Sage

1 medium butternut squash
1 small sweet onion, peeled and diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
Olive oi
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup fresh sage leaves
1 pound farfalle pasta
3/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Heat the oven to 375°. Cut the butternut squash in half and scoop out the strings and seeds the middle cavity. Flip the squash halves upside down and peel them. Cut the squash into 1-inch cubes. Drizzle with olive oil and roast in a roasting pan, covered, for about 40 minutes or until the squash is soft.

Heat salted pasta water to boiling and cook the farfalle until al dente. Drain and set aside. As the squash finishes roasting, heat about two tablespoons of olive oil in a large high-sided sauté pan. The oil is ready when it pops and sputters. Saute onion and garlic until translucent. Drop the sage leaves and fry for about a minute, or until they begin to just shrivel up.

Remove with a slotted spoon and salt lightly. Crush with the back of a spoon.

Add pasta to the pan, along with the roasted squash mixture. Crumble in the sage. Cook, stirring frequently, for five minutes or until the pasta is heated through and getting crispy on some of the edges. Add the pine nuts and cook for another minute.

Serves 4

*I forgot the pine nuts when I made this and it was still fabuous. Original recipe called for roating sqaush with onion, sage and garlic on a baking sheet in the oven but this gassed us all and we had to aerate the house and eat around browned up the garlic and the sage into toasty bits. So I simplified the existing recipe to prevent this happening the enxt time I make this.

Spinach Lasagna

6 lasagna noodles
1 1/2 c shredded mozzarella cheese
1 25 oz. jar pasta sauce, 365 Classic Pasta Sauce
1 15 oz. container of ricotta cheese
1 c torn spinach leaves
1 egg
salt, pepper, oregano to taste

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Boil noodles for 7-10 minutes. Drain and set aside. Beat egg and mix with ricotta cheese and salt, pepper and oregano. Layer (3) noodles, spinach, ricotta mixture, 3/4 c mozzarella cheese and half of sauce. Top with rest of noodles, 3/4 c mozzarella cheese and remaining sauce. Cover baking dish with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.

Caprese

Self explanatory. Cheese, tomato, basil, repeat. Top with evoo and balsamic.

And while I was not working with heirloom tomatoes or fresh baby mozz, the ingredients were fresh and several cuts above those employed in something going by this name at a local restaurant recently. Their *unlucky* (hint) rendition was astonishingly accomplished in delivering zero flavor from any of its inherently flavorful components. The olive oil could have been Crisco for all I knew, and the tomatoes had a pallor like they were grown in the Arctic circle. All in all, it was one of the more unpleasant dining experiences we've had in some time. Poor service, fresh baked bread on the table that was from a bland mix, J's shrimp linguini also suspiciously overly fishy.

And so the simple Caprese has been redeemed.

Homemade pizza

Where did I write down the dough? It was just flour, water and yeast, but specifics are good to be able to repeat... Once baked, the crust was crisp and cracker-like. Not too doughy, so perfect.

Made this one night when the fridge was bare (eating down the fresh stuff in advance of going out of town), so toppings were catch-as-catch-can leftovers bits. A bit of canned pizza sauce formed the base. Ricotta cheese and grated romano did an OK stand-in for mozzarella. Roasted earlier in the oven fresh tomato, red onion and garlic got piled on with chopped nicoise olives and anchovies. The anchovies turned out to be a bit much. The rest was a good melange.

Minestone with Barley, Sage and White Beans

Slightly tweaked from Jan/Feb 2007 Cooking Light magazine; there it is termed "Hearty" and soiled with bacon.

1 t olive oil
2 c finely chopped onion (about 1 med)
1/2 c finely chopped celery (about 1 stalk)
1/4 c chopped carrot (about 1 med)
1/4 c sliced green onions
1 T chopped, fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 T chopped fresh sage
1/2 t chopped fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, minced (I may have bumped up the garlic by 1 or 2 cloves)
1 1/4 c. chopped radicchio (1 small head)
2 c. water (I may have added more as the soup was quite bulky)
1/4 t salt
1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
2 and 1/2 containers of No-Chicken broth
1 (16 oz.) can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 c peeled potato (about 1 med), cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 c uncooked pearl barley
2 c greens beans (I used Trader Joe's frozen haricots verts)

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over med-high heat. Add onion, celery, carrot, green onions, parsley, sage, thyme and garlic. Saute 5 minutes. Add radicchio, water, salt, pepper, broth and beans. Bring to a boil. Stir in potato, barley and frozen green beans (if using fresh, add green beans in the last 5 minutes just before serving). Reduce heat and let simmer for 20-25 minutes.

Yield: 8 servings.

This is a vegan soup if it weren't for the generous topping of picorino romano we ate it with! Optional, but the pr tastes destined for it.

2 Pasta Skillets in One Day

Top: Whole wheat pasta, garlic, capers, shallot, cherry tomatoes, purple kale and olive oil.
Bottom: Whole wheat pasta, garlic, toasted pine nuts, parsley, cherry tomatoes, minced anchovy and olive oil.

Quick and easy. Pre-cook and drain pasta. Pre-toast pine nuts, if using, in a separate cast-iron skillet. In a larger cast-iron skillet, warm olive oil (about 1/4 c for this much pasta, which ended up serving 2 people with a little left over) and saute garlic and shallot until glassy. Add rest of ingredients, including pasta, and toss until greens are wilted and all else is cooked through.

Olive Oil Polenta Cake

Tried this yummy recipe from Babbo's website. Highly recommended! Not too sweet. Nice layers of flavors and scone-like texture.

Olive Oil and Polenta Cake

4 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
Freshly grated zest of 1 medium orange
Freshly grated zest of 1 medium lemon
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup instant polenta
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Confectioner’s sugar for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350º and position a rack in the center of the oven. Lightly grease a 9-inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray or butter.

Place the eggs and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer, and with the whisk attachment, beat them on medium speed until they are tripled in volume, fluffy and pale yellow in color.

While the eggs are beating, in a medium bowl combine the flour, polenta, baking powder and salt.

Alternate adding the dry ingredients to the egg mixture with the olive oil; begin with 1/3 of the dry ingredients, then add half the oil, followed by another 1/3 of dry ingredients, beating only until each addition is incorporated. Stop the mixer and briefly scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the remaining olive oil, followed by the last 1/3 of the dry ingredients.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes. Rotate the cake 180º halfway through the baking time to ensure even browning. The cake is done when it springs back lightly when touched and pulls away from the sides of the pan, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cake on a rack, in the pan, for 12 to 15 minutes, then carefully remove the sides of the pan and allow the cake to cool completely.

Before serving, dust the cake with confectioner’s sugar.

Makes 8 to 10 servings

Arugula Pasta Toss

Over whole wheat pasta:
Heat 1/8 inch of olive oil in a pan. Add 4 cloves of sliced garlic, two diced shallots and 1/4 cup of pine nuts. Stir for a few minutes as garlic and shallots become translucent. Add cherry tomatoes and arugula. Stir until greens are wilted but still bright green. Toss over pasta. Other add-ins at table: salt, pepper, capers, grated romano cheese.

Polenta with Puddle

Not to be a humbug, but I’ve come to expect that recipes followed to the letter turn out “correctly”(by that I mean edible and at least minimally palatable)—as my aptitude with following instructions is what has lead me to venture away from the page for the more trial and error territory of improvization. So imagine my surprise when something I made last night and followed to the letter flopped! I’m working every square inch of my cookbook shelf lately—revisiting old and neglected tomes and realizing why they’ve been neglected. The culprit here is “ ,“ a photoless hodgepodge of adventurous-sounding veg dishes offered up by restauranteur chefs of the 90’s. Due to my inexperience with polenta and pomengranate, and how potentially tasty this combination sounded, I decided to make a dish called “Polenta with pomegranate, sage and pine nuts.” Oh and spinach plays a major part in this dish too, though it loses top billing to the more “exotic” accents.

I didn’t take a photo because it turned into the ugliest yellow and red puddle I’ve ever plated, though the flavors meshed in potentially interesting ways. The main problem was that the wine never came down to a glaze and the broth added on top of that never came down to a sauce, in spite of two rounds of arrowroot slurry I fortified it with. Also, the cup of wine was a bit much. I didn’t have the Marsala called for so I substituted with a Syrah instead and understandly that made a big difference in flavor- J thought it was “vinegary.” And the proportions turned out weird too. For leftovers I’ve got 1/8 cup of leftover polenta—and another 1/8 of a cup stuck to the pan. Zero spinach and 3 cups of the wine sauce—which is really too overpowering for most vegetable dishes I can think of. Might be a better accompaniment with lamb or beef, but then, what do I know about lamb or beef? I think this was originally conceived of as a meat-based recipe and someone made a half-assed attempt to swap out loin for cornmeal. Bah.

One successful lesson was experiencing how yummy a saute of spinach, shallots, pine nuts and pomegranate seeds is. That I will be doing again. Funny, after making this and flipping through the book again to see if any other dishes bore the asterisk of my own test-kitchen run, I found only one—a garden paella I made 7 years ago on which I commented.. “kind of flavorless, not enough spice, end result quantity WAY off.” Without being a hater, I wonder if anyone else keeps a list of “non-recommended cookbooks.” Seems like this would be a useful service to home chefs, as there is considerable time and expense on the line when trusting the word of recipe developers and publishers. Or, humoring the possibility of (my) human error for a moment, do any cookbooks- particularly advanced ones- offer something like a tech support service? A 24-hour hotline for home cooks whose wine is not coming down to a glaze while the other simultaneous elements of the dish are ready to eat.. would be helpful. An expansion opportunity for CIA’s internship program?