Posts filed under 'pasta'
When my husband goes into the office during the week, I usually eat lunch alone. I have a hard time working up the motivation to cook a whole meal just for myself, so sometimes I end up having a “snack” like chips and hummus until–oops–no need for lunch! Stewart will come home from work and ask if I made anything fun, and it’s then when I realize that toast, or chips, or whatever I had filled myself up with that day probably wasn’t the best idea.
Therefore I’m always trying to come up with recipes that are a little more substantial, but are easy to make and consist of ingredients we always have laying around. Here’s what I decided to work with today:
Fettuccini, lemon, sundried tomatoes, red pepper flakes, and broccoli. For the past couple of days I’ve had the idea of this light, fresh, flavorful pasta floating around in my head. The only ingredients used in the recipe that aren’t pictured here are oil, salt, and black pepper. I love this dish because you can taste everything and it all works really well together. The tanginess of the lemon, the sweetness of the tomatoes, the crisp broccoli, the spicy peppper… it’s really yummy. And hey, any dish that involves broccoli is pretty much an automatic winner in my house.
This dish is written for one, but it should be really easy to scale up if you’re cooking for more. We usually buy whole stalks of broccoli instead of just the crowns because we enjoy eating the stems as much as the florets. While this recipe is for only florets, feel free to add the diced stalk in as well. Just cut 1-2″ off the bottom (the tough, woody part) and you should be good to go. You can peel the stem if you want it even more tender.
The key to this dish is balancing the salt, lemon juice, and oil. You want enough oil to distribute the flavors over the pasta, but not so much it’s greasy. There shouldn’t be any oil pooling in the bottom of the pan or on your plate - you want just enough to coat the pasta and no more. The salt and the lemon juice should even each other out; you should taste both without either being overwhelming. Start with 1 tsp of the lemon juice and then add the salt to taste. You should then have a better idea then if you need more of either.
Spicy Lemon Pepper Pasta with Broccoli
Serves one
Dried Fettucini, enough for one
2 tsp Olive Oil, to start
1 1/2 Cups Fresh Broccoli Florets
1/4 Cup Sliced Sundried Tomatoes (oil packed)
1/2 tsp Hot Red Pepper Flakes
1 tsp Fresh Lemon Juice, or more to taste
1-2 Pinches Kosher Salt, or to taste
Black Pepper, to taste
Lemon Zest, for garnish, optional
While the pasta is cooking in well-salted water, chop the broccoli florets in to small pieces (about the size of a nickel). Slice the sundried tomatoes. When pasta is nearly finished cooking, heat a wok over medium-high heat until it’s quite hot. Add oil and broccoli and toss to coat, adding more oil a little at a time if needed. After 1-2 minutes, add tomatoes and pepper flakes.
Let cook undisturbed for another two minutes, then toss. Repeat this process until broccoli and tomatoes have some color on them, and the broccoli is bright green and becoming tender. Drain pasta very well and add to the wok, adding just enough oil to coat the pasta (if needed). Add lemon juice and salt and taste, adjusting if necessary. Plate and grind fresh black pepper over the top, adding lemon zest if desired. Serve immediately.
This also makes a nice room-temperature pasta salad, so it’d be great for picnics, work lunches, or potlucks.
January 25th, 2008
I’m forever combining kale and tofu. I always seem to have both on hand, probably because I love both ingredients. Today, Christmas day, we wanted lunch but certainly couldn’t make a trip to our little (very closed) grocery store. Time to play with kale and tofu again.
I’ve been trying to perfect pan-fried tofu. It doesn’t sound like something that would be all that hard, and really, it’s not. It’s a simple concept. But like all simple things, small changes can make a huge difference in the final result. I like my tofu a little crispy on the outside, and chewy and flavorful on the inside. There are three things I’ve discovered to help me achieve this: a cast-iron pan, a decently long cooking period, and a rest period afterwards.
Have you ever noticed that your baked tofu firms up a bit when it cools? Just out of the pan or the oven, it can still be a little floppy, a little mushy, a little… bleh. Let it sit out on your cutting board for a few minutes and it’ll firm right up, giving a chewier texture. I’ll give more details in the actual recipe on how to get your pan-fried tofu to turn out like the picture shows.
These noodles are stir fried and only lightly flavored - I made a dipping sauce to go with this dish inspired by the one P.F. Changs makes when you sit down. I’s a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, mustard, and chili sauce–well, at least that’s what my mixture is. I have no idea what P.F. Changs actually uses.
The marinade for the tofu is similar for the dipping sauce, but the resulting baked tofu is complimented by the sauce, instead of tasting like more of the same. I love pouring a bit of the dipping sauce over the noodles and tofu while I’m eating for a little extra zing.
Pan Fried Tofu, Kale, and Stir-Fried Noodles
Serves Two
1 Package Extra/Super Firm Tofu
1 Head Kale, deveined and torn
5 oz. Dried, Wide Rice Noodles (Mine come in 10 oz packages)
Sugar
Soy Sauce
Tofu Marinade
1/4 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Soy Sauce or Tamari
1 Tbs Thinly Sliced Ginger (or minced)
1 Tbs Maple Syrup
1 Tbs Oil
1 Tbs Seasoned Rice Vinegar
1 Garlic Clove, minced
1/2 tsp Mustard
1/4 tsp Sriracha or Hot Chili Sauce
Black Pepper, to taste
Dipping Sauce
1/4 Cup Soy Sauce or Tamari
1/4 Cup Water
1 Tbs Seasoned Rice Vinegar
1 tsp Mustard
1 tsp Sriracha
Begin by pressing the tofu. I wrap my tofu in a single paper towel, then in a bar towel, and place a cast iron pan on top for 15 or so minutes. The paper towel prevents bar towel fuzz from getting on the tofu, while the terry cloth bar towel sucks out a ton of water.
While the tofu is pressing, whisk together the marinade. I used a mandoline to cut the ginger into paper-thin slices: that way some cooks with the tofu and you get mild bits of ginger on the finished tofu. You can mince the ginger if you don’t have a mandoline available.
Cut the tofu into 8 equal sized rectangles and let it sit in the marinade for about 30 minutes, turning halfway through. Meanwhile, boil the rice noodles and cook for 6 minutes, until just tender. Rinse in cold water and drain as well as you can, set aside. I also cut my noodles with scissors to prevent them from being too long.
Whisk together the dipping sauce, and set aside.
Heat a large cast-iron pan over medium-high heat. Lightly oil the pan, just enough so the it’s shiny. Once the pan is very hot, add the tofu. If your pan is seasoned, you shouldn’t have any issues with the tofu sticking. Brown the tofu on one side, flip, and brown on the other side. I then spoon extra marinade over the tofu and flip every few minutes. In all, I cook the tofu for around 10 minutes, until it looks like the tofu will be burnt if I leave it on any longer. Remove tofu from the pan and let it rest while finishing the dish.
Heat a little more oil in your pan, add the kale. Once softened, add the noodles and toss. If they stick, that’s okay. Use a metal spatula to remove them; the crispy bits are tasty. Add more oil, enough to coat the noodles, if needed.
Flavor the noodles lightly with a sprinkle of soy sauce and a pinch of sugar. Plate the noodles and kale. Slice the now firmed (but still warm) tofu and place on top. Serve with dipping sauce.
Leftover tofu is wonderful in sandwiches. Happy holidays!
December 25th, 2007
I’ve been thinking about flavor. More specifically, how to get the most flavor out of each ingredient used in a recipe. This is especially important when you want to make a meal and only have a few things on hand. If you can make each ingredient really count, it doesn’t matter if your only throwing a handful of them together.
(Can you tell I need to make a trip to the grocery store really, really badly?)
The recipe I’m going to use as an example of making your ingredients count is a simple minestrone. Before I made the soup I asked myself, “So what technically makes a minestrone?” The answer turned out to be “Almost whatever you want”–which makes it the perfect soup to make when you find your fridge a little more bare than you’d prefer. Minestrone started as the classic “garbage soup.” I prefer to call it these kinds of soups “clean out the fridge soups” myself. The idea is that you do not go grocery shopping to make minestrone. You use whatever you have on hand, be it extra vegetables, canned goods, frozen things, or leftovers.
So how did I get the most out of the ingredients I had?
Caramelized Onions
The extra time put into caramelized onions really pays off. The longer you cook them, the more complex their flavor becomes. I saute my onions for at least 10 minutes in olive oil, until they are a lovely reddish-brown and very soft. It is SO worth the extra few minutes of cooking before you proceed with your meal. Spend the 10 minutes prepping your other veggies to make the rest of the meal go smoothly and quickly.
Canned Tomatoes
Keep a stock of canned tomatoes, if you don’t already. If you buy stewed or fire roasted tomatoes, you already have a leg up. These tomatoes are already partially cooked and have a lot of flavor in a convenient package. Unless it’s mid-summer and I have gorgeous vine-ripened tomatoes, I always go for the canned stuff. It’s easy, cheap, consistent, and tasty. At the risk of sounding like Rachel Ray, it really does help you get “all day flavor” in just a few minutes.
Herbs and Spices
I rarely have fresh herbs available (they’re expensive and I’ve failed at growing my own), but when I do, I try to get the most out of them. Don’t add fresh herbs until the very end of cooking. The delicate flavors will be most enjoyable if you toss your freshly chopped herbs in at the end of whatever you’re making. The residual heat from the dish is enough to carry the flavors through. This applies to pepper, too. Try out fresh cracked pepper, from whole peppercorns, added at the end over your dish. You’ll be astounded at the difference in flavor compared to pre-ground pepper.
How many dishes do you make that start with a bit of oil heated in the pan? If you’re using dried herbs or other spices, try throwing them in at the very beginning, in the oil. Tossing dried herbs and spices into oil and sauteing for a minute or so (longer with whole spices) flavors the oil itself and brings a whole new dimension to your cooking. The majority of Indian dishes start this way, and for good reason.
Salt and Vinegar
I admit that I’m a bit of a salt whore. I love it. But it really is amazing stuff. It doesn’t just make things salty, it actually enhances other flavors. I can taste all the other flavors in my dish much better when it is sufficiently salty. Even pasta cooked in salted water tastes better to me.
I also use vinegar in conjunction with salt. I use the term vinegar loosely to mean nearly anything that’s sour. I keep balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar, rice vinegar and apple cider vinegar on hand at all times, but lemon juice works great on it’s own in many occasions. Vinegar can be a lifesaver if you over-salt something by accident, but I like to use salt and vinegar together to really punch up a dish’s flavor. They’re a great team. If your dish needs a little “something” and you don’t know what that is, try salt and/or vinegar and see where that gets you. I think it’s easiest to balance the flavors if you add the salt before the vinegar.
Minestrone Soup
Serves 4
Olive Oil
1 Sweet Yellow Onion, diced
1-4 Clove(s) Garlic, minced
1 Can Stewed or Fire Roasted Tomatoes (15 oz), blended
1 Large Carrot, diced
6 Cups of Hot Water or Veg Stock
1 Tbs Tomato Paste
1 Bay Leaf
1/4-1/2 tsp Celery Salt
2/3 Cup Elbow Macaroni
2 Cups Kale, packed
Salt to Taste (I used 1 1/2 tsp)
1/2 Cup Frozen peas
2 Tbs Fresh Herbs (I used marjoram and rosemary, 1 Tbs total after chopping)
Lemon Zest
Black Pepper
Add a few tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a soup pot that has a lid. Heat oil and add onions. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. In the last minute of cooking, add the garlic.
Tip for mincing garlic: After removing the skin (smash it lightly with the flat side of your knife to do that), chop the garlic with a pinch of salt. The salt acts as a tenderizer and the friction of the granules break down the clove to help you achieve a fine mince.
Add the tomatos to the onions and garlic and simmer for another 4-5 minutes. Add the carrot and the water/broth and bring to a boil. Add the tomato paste, bay leaf, and celery salt cook until the carrots begin to soften. Then add macaroni and stir often, making sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Add kale.
Add salt to taste. I used water, and therefore added 1 1/2 tsp of salt. If you used vegetable broth or bullion, you may not need this much salt. Simmer, covered, until the pasta is cooked. Add the peas at the end, they’ll defrost in a matter of seconds. Turn off heat, add fresh herbs.
Ladle soup into bowls and grate some lemon zest over the top of each serving. Sprinkle pepper over the top.
December 12th, 2007
There are innumerable recipes for vegan mac and cheese on the internet. I’ve tried a lot of them. Some of them simply call for “slices of soy cheese” and some vegetable stock to be mixed over pasta. The majority, however, require nutritional yeast, and they usually also require making a roux. The recipe below is from my upcoming cookbook, and it’s one of my favorites. However, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, there are some things about vegan mac and cheeze I want to talk about.
Now, I’m the first to admit “Mac and Yeast” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. That’s why I tend to call it “Mac and Cheeze”. But I’m also the first to admit that these recipes, even the best of them, don’t really taste all that much like mac and cheese. Some get much closer than others, and a lot are downright tasty. But it’s not cheese. Your omnivore or veggie friend/spouse/child may love it as much as or even more than the real stuff (if you’re lucky), but they probably love it on its own merits, not because they really can’t tell the difference.
But you know what? It doesn’t have to taste exactly the same for me to love it.
A lot of people, myself included, are really interested in making vegan food that’s indistinguishable from the “real” thing. It’s a fun challenge, and oftentimes, a challenge where you can really and truly be successful. But there are many instances where you don’t create something identical, but what you do create is actually good. Different, but yummy. While vegan mac and cheese doesn’t taste exactly like non-vegan mac and cheese, it satisfies the same craving. It’s rich and creamy and salty and vaguely cheese-like. It’s a yummy, thick creamy sauce to top noodles with.
I think that sometimes it’s enough to satisfy your cravings with something similar, if you can’t find something identical. After three years of being vegan, I don’t even crave mac and cheese anymore; I crave mac and yeast.
I think expectation is important with food. If it looks like a grape, you expect it to taste like a grape. If I hand you a glass of sparkling wine and tell you it’s gingerale, you might be put off when you take a sip. You might even like wine, but you expected it to be, well, not wine. If I say, “here, try this mac and cheese” and give you mac and yeast, you might be disappointed when you tasted it. If you’ve never tried a mac and yeast recipe before, and you want to try this one, keep in mind that it doesn’t taste like cheese.
It just tastes like yummy. Well, it does to me and the vegans that tested the recipe for me!
Mac and Cheeze
Serves 2-3
1/3 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
2 1/2 Tbs Low Sodium Tamari or Soy Sauce
1 Tbs Lemon Juice, fresh
1 Tbs Sweet/White/Mellow Miso
1 Tbs Tahini
1 Tbs Tomato Paste (not sauce!)
1 1/4 Cup Soy Milk
1/3 Cup Nutritional Yeast
1 Pinch Salt
Black Pepper, to taste
Begin by heating a sauce pan and adding the earth balance. Once melted, add flour and whisk vigorously until a smooth paste forms, called a roux. Be careful not to add flour to a pan that is very hot, or your roux will be lumpy and you’ll need to start over. If you mix in the flour as soon as the margarine is melted and you should avoid any problems.
To this paste, add tamari, lemon, miso, tahini, and tomato paste and whisk until well incorporated. The mixture should still be paste-like. Then slowly pour in the soymilk, whisking constantly, until it is completely incorporated. Add the yeast and mix well. Cook the mixture until it thickens, whisking often. This should take approximately 5 minutes, but it’s flexible. Add salt and pepper to taste.
I like this the most baked. Cook 3 cups of dry, small pasta (like elbows or shells or rotini) and toss with the finished cheezy sauce. Add steamed broccoli (pictured) for a real treat. Top with fresh breadcrumbs and bake at 400º for 25 minutes, or until browned and bubbly.
I’ve spilled so much ink so far (well, pixels) telling you that vegan cheese doesn’t taste like cheese, so I figured I’d close the entry with this: vegan cheese that, to me, tastes like mother forkin’ cheese! It deserves an entire entry devoted to it, so I’ll just leave you with this until part two of my vegan cheese post:
October 17th, 2007
Is the idea of a fall-food flavored pasta weird? If it is, then I love weird pasta.
In an effort to get excited about autumn, I’ve been doing my best to pick up some new ingredients. Goodness knows I’m not looking forward to winter, so food may be the only way I can actually celebrate the changing of the seasons. One of the ingredients I picked up was a little tub of organic pepitas. Pepitas are pumpkin seeds, and they are usually sold with the white hull removed, revealing a smooth olive green seed. If you decide to use pumpkin seeds from the pumpkins you carve this year, be sure to wash and dry the seeds throughly and roast them in a low oven for an hour or so until dry and toasty. Don’t worry about removing the white hull.
This pasta is flavored with tamari and maple syrup, but only a little of each. This coats the pasta and gives it a nice, balanced sweet flavor without actually being a full-on sauce. The spinach is sauteed with red pepper flakes for a bit of heat, the cranberries add a pop of sweet tanginess, and the crushed pepitas round the whole thing out. It’s really a lovely meal, and what’s more, it’s super easy to prepare. It should only take as long to make this dish as the pasta takes to cook.
I made it for lunch, so this recipe only serves one. It should be very easy to increasing the servings should you want to make it for more than one person.
Pepita Fettucini with Spinach and Cranberries
Serves One
Fettucini for One (which, is it just me, or is that 1/2 the box that “serves 8″?)
1/3 Cup Raw, Unsalted Pepitas
1 Tbs Oil
1/4 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
2 Large Handfuls Spinach, torn
1 Tbs Soy Sauce
1 Tbs Maple Syrup
2-3 Fresh Thyme Sprigs, optional
1/4 Cup Dried Cranberries
Begin by bringing a pot of salted water to boil. While the water is heating, run the pepitas around in your food processor until pretty finely chopped. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add spinach. Use tongs to coat the spinach in the hot oil. Add the red pepper flakes, the tamari and maple syrup, and the thyme if you’re using it. Toss in the cranberries and mix everything up really well. Turn heat to low (or just turn it off and cover it until your pasta is cooked).
Drain pasta and add it to your skillet. Add crushed pepitas and toss well until everything is coated. Taste a noodle and see if you need an extra splash of tamari and/or maple syrup. The noodles should look like they don’t have a sauce on them, but they’ll taste like they do.
Serve immediately.
October 11th, 2007
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