Deviled Pasta

This recipe title was not a lie, even though I thought it sounded pretty mild.  Bell peppers with onion and garlic and red pepper flakes sauteed, then added to tomato sauce (I used some fresh(ish) tomatoes I had instead).  Put over penne and top with ricotta cheese.  My hatred towards ricotta is well-documented, so I went with some left over goat cheese.

Very nice on a work night, especially to celebrate a day of house-training success.  Yay puppies!

Pesto Pizza

They call it pesto pizza, but they lie — it’s really a mushroom pizza with basil.  Good, but not actually pesto.  In that spirit I embraced the laziness of just tearing up some basil over the pizza dough, rather than go to the bother of mixing basil and olive oil (no parm or pine nuts called for) in the food processor. 

With the basil, you just throw on some sauteed mushrooms, feta cheese, and oregano and put it in the oven — about 20 minutes on 425 was perfect for Trader Joe’s whole wheat pizza dough.   I really don’t shop there all that often; it’s just that the pre-made carbs are so so good.

Bruschetta Time!

Lovely little bits of thing on good bread — what a marvelous idea!

1) Crumbled blue cheese drizzled with honey (Gorgonzola works, too.  I would eat this for dessert, even with no chocolate in sight)

2) Walnuts and Parmesan cheese with a bit of lemon juice and oil in a food processor, and if you’re fancy you can garnish with more Parm

3) Smashed peas with mint, oil, salt and pepper in the food processor, then garnish with mint

3b) You can also throw in a mess of garlic and a bit of parm with not quite as much mint

4) Chickpeas with balsamic vinegar, parsley, garlic, oil, salt and pepper in the food processor (I love my food processor)

5) Minced mushrooms, garlic, olive oil, parm, and thyme and parsley sauteed

6) And yay to the Queen Creek olive oil mill  for making an olive and red pepper tapenade that is very nice on toasted bread and a bit of melted Mozzarella

Skirt Steak Romesco

This was good even as lazy as I am, so I imagine it’s very good if you do it properly.  I had a potato baked already, so used that instead of a freshly boiled one.  Also used the cheapest manager’s special beef they had, and threw in some red pepper flakes after three frustrated minutes of trying to open the jar of roasted red peppers.

Throw the aforementioned potato and cow in with some salt and pepper, roasted almonds, garlic, grated parm, jarred red peppers, olive oil, and red wine vinegar.  In theory you boil the potatoes and grill the steak separately, then make up the sauce and put it over both.  I was tired.

Vegetable Shepherd’s Pie

I thought nothing would be as good as my grandmother’s traditional shepherd’s pie (Christmas leftovers — mashed potato, turkey, gravy, and veg) but this was good.

Boil up then simmer a peeled and diced sweet potato for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cut up some fennel, celery, onion, and parsnip (I skipped the Brussels sprouts because I’m twelve, and also couldn’t be bothered to thaw spinach).  Thor it all in a pan with some oil and broth and cook for about the same amount of time.  Transfer the vegetables (I’d like to do something with the leftover broth besides dump it) to a casserole dish, then mash up the sweet potato with a bit of butter and spread it on top.  Throw it in the oven for about 5 minutes, until it’s all lovely and has a bit of a crust.

Serves 2 more than comfortably, though I admit a second sweet potato wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Cumin-scented Chicken

I’m kind of missing all of this recipe except the ingredients, but decided to just make it a yogurt marinade and throw it on the grill to serve with some vegetables and Trader Joe’s naan, which was just as good as their tortillas. 

 Yogurt, onion, cilantro, garlic, lemon zest, cumin, cayenne, and chicken in a bag overnight.  Grill.  The end.  It was nice.  Especially with an electric grill you can throw in the dishwasher.  The thought of baking it was .  .  . not right. 

Vegetable Fried Rice

I don’t make proper Chinese food.  I’ll do a stir fry, but I grew up across the street from the best Chinese food in town.  Not a high priority to try to cook it.  Tried this and definitely not as good as Lychee’s.  Too salty.  But now that I no longer live across the street . . .

Cook rice.  Fry up all kinds of vegetables (I used mushrooms, carrots, and snow peas with some onion) in 2 parts brown sugar, 1 part white wine or rice vinegar, 1 part ginger, 1 part peanut or olive oil, and way less soy sauce than the recipe says.  Save a bit of the sauce for when you fry up the rice.  I added a dash of sesame oil, because it made me happy.  Remove the vegetables and fry up the rice with the reserved sauce before throwing an egg or two on one side of the pan to scramble.  Add vegetables, serve.

Tomato Salad w/Orzo and Feta

Delightful for a work day lunch.  Seeded and quartered tomatoes, olive oil, minced chives, basil, garlic, lemon zest, feta, and orzo all in some IKEA Tupperware and you’re set.

Vegetable Gumbo

Disclaimer:  I’ve never had real gumbo, so I can’t rate this as a gumbo (and am not sure how thick it was supposed to get), but as a soup it’s rather nice.   Step one:  search three stores for okra before finally finding some in a Whole Foods freezer.   Step two:  throw some oil, onion, & celery and cook for a few minutes before dumping in a can of diced tomatoes, corn, okra, and some diced potatoes.  Add some vegetable stock and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are soft and the aforementioned thickening has occurred (about 30 minutes, they tell me).  Add hot sauce to taste.

Polenta Cake with Plums

So, there’s this whole long involved recipe for the polenta cake, where you make the instant polenta with milk and butter and then whisk in an egg yolk and honey and sugar, and then fold in the separately beaten egg white and sugar.  I a) still only had Trader Joe’s ready made polenta (which is ready made with water, not milk and butter and sugar) and b) didn’t really care.  So I took the ready made polenta and mixed it up with a dash of cream and a bit of sugar and a lot of honey and way more vanilla than anyone else probably would, and the whole egg.  And then I popped it in the oven and hoped for the best.  And it turned out pretty damn well.  Some texture issues I’m not sure about, but by the time it was sopping in melty ice cream and diced plums I didn’t really care about that, either.  Yay unrepeatable experiments!