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Broccoli and Chorizo Pasta with Cheese

18 Apr

creamy, crunchy, stodgy, zesty

I needed some comfort food with attitude (and no trips to the grocery store).

Some of you will remember in the early days of this blog that Leandro and I were in the emergency room twice within a month’s time to get him stitched up. That stress is in the past, but the part about having to pay the equivalent of an entire paycheck to cover what the health insurance doesn’t is a stress that is very much in the present.

So, I was in the mood for something cozy but kicking, something that didn’t call for a whole lot of work or special ingredients. And ideally, it would be something I could also put in Leandro’s lunch box the next day. The solution — after a quick rummage in the fridge — was this invention: Broccoli and chorizo pasta with cheese. I used catanisella pasta (a new shape for me) figuring Leandro would have fun with its long, skinny, tubiness and because I wanted something that the cheese would cling to rather than clog up (think of macaroni shells scooping up clumps of cheese). The broccoli crunch balanced the creaminess and the spice of the chorizo cut through any density. All in all a great success that did the job!

Broccoli and chorizo pasta with cheese (serves 4)

1 lb pasta – preferably medium short

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

½ yellow onion, peeled and chopped (about 1/2 cup)

8 oz hot (picante) Spanish-style chorizo (the cured, ready-to-eat kind…NOT Latin American chorizo, which must be cooked through. You may substitute dry Italian sausage or andouille sausage), peeled and sliced into ¼ inch rounds

8 – 16 oz broccoli crowns, washed and separated (blanched if desired. I usually use a strainer and dip them in the boiling pasta water for a minute until they turn bright green)

½ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Gran Padano cheese

Boil pasta according to package directions (dipping broccoli into the boiling water to blanche). Reserve a ¼ cup of the pasta water.

Heat olive oil at medium-high in a heavy-bottomed  saucepan until fragrant. Add onion, stir to coat, then lower heat to medium and allow to become translucent and soft (at least five minutes). Add chorizo, stirring occasionally, until it begins to release its reddish oil. Add broccoli, stir to coat and cook until beginning to wilt (2 minutes or so). Add ¼ cup reserved pasta water and simmer until slightly thickened. Stir in cheese, add to pasta and serve. (It is doubtful that you will need to add salt, as the chorizo and the cheese will provide plenty!)

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Tuna, Apple and Macaroni Shell Salad – luncheon, potluck, picnic, or BBQ fare

22 Mar

Just like mom used to make!

I needed a quick dish for the first potluck of the season at our new CSA (Restoration Farm at Old Bethpage Restoration Village http://www.restorationfarm.com/). Normally I would do something more elaborate and planned, but the boy and I had been home sick for a couple of days and then busier than we should have been, given that we needed some recovery time, and then plain old sick of one another…just star-crossed and cross and no way was I going to a store to get any ingredients.

Then I remembered a  favorite warm weather dish that my mom would make for backyard barbecues and the like. This tuna and macaroni salad involves minimal prep and I usually have all the ingredients in. It’s creamy, but the apples provide crunch and tang, and each bite is texturally entertaining. My brother and I would just gobble it up (with extra mayonnaise, of course), delighted when two or three shells were cradled together for a really pasta-y morsel.

So I put it together in a jiffy and we took it on down to the gathering (where there were loads of other good things to eat that I need the recipes for!) and were so pleased to see many old friends of the good eating, farming persuasion…well, I was pleased, but it was not Leandro’s finest hour and we left in rather a messy, huffy hurry…anyway…the salad worked out fine and I had leftovers for lunch on Monday.

If you are observing Lent, consider it for a fast Friday fix that is balanced enough to be a one-dish meal. Thanks Mom!

Myrna’s Tuna and Macaroni Shell Pasta Salad

1 lb. medium macaroni shells

½ Cup of each the following chopped into fingernail size bits: carrots; celery; white or red onion

1 Cup Red Delicious/Macintosh/Granny Smith apple, unpeeled, chopped into fingernail size chunks

1 5oz can your preferred tuna, drained

6 Tbs mayonnaise

2 Tbs plain nonfat yogurt (low or full fat okay)

1-2 Tbs prepared mustard

Cook shells according to package directions. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Serve at room temperature. You can also eat it as leftovers, but you will probably want to add a bit of mayo, as the pasta tends to absorb the mayo over time.

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Cannellini and Chard Soup (with or without bacon)

15 Mar

Hearty, Dense, Soul-Satisfying (and great re-heated!)

I don’t know quite how it happened, but today’s accidental soup is one of the best I’ve ever made.  I just started pulling things that needed using out of the fridge and freezer, and dug around the pantry and about a half hour later, Leandro and I were slurping in happy ecstasy….Please note that the vegetable juice is a key element (a trick I learned from Cook’s Illustrated magazine) in getting a lot of veggie flavor that is more complex and not as sharp as straight-up canned tomatoes.

Tip for the peasants among us who hate waste and love flavor: if you are like me, you use a lot of real parmigiano reggiano and/or gran padano cheese. This leaves you with a lot of rinds after the grating is done. I save the rind in a plastic container in the fridge and drop it in the pot towards the end of cooking tomato-based soups like this one or minestrone. It lends a lot of richness, but must be removed before serving as it is not meant for eating!

Chard and White Bean Soup

2 Tbs olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

½ cup celery, chopped fine

4 oz bacon, coarsely chopped (you can skip this for the vegetarian version)

8oz. chard, thoroughly washed, stems removed (and reserved for a later stir fry or sauté), chopped

16-24 oz low sodium vegetable juice (like V-8)

2 cups water

1 cup ditale or other chunky short pasta

15 oz can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley (or 1 Tbs dry)

leftover parmigiano/gran padano rind or several tbs good grated cheese

Salt to taste

In a soup pot heat olive oil on medium high until fragrant, add onions, stir and lower heat. Sauté until wilting, then add celery and sauté until softened. Add bacon (if desired), raise heat  and cook through, stirring occasionally. Add chard and sauté until wilting. Add vegetable juice, add two cups water, bring to a boil, and add pasta. Lower heat to a vigorous simmer. After 10 minutes, add beans and parsley and parmigiano rind, if you’ve got. You may need or wantto add more water. Heat through, adjust salt if necessary, test pasta and serve (with generous amount of grated cheese, if you didn’t have rind) with crusty bread.

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Cheesy Chard Pasta

7 Mar

Chard is one of those leafy greens everyone should eat more of. It’s actually as delicious in winter as in summer and provides calcium and all sorts of other nutrients and has a bit more body than spinach (but can be used in much the same ways with a little extra cook time).

My son loves spinach pasta (which appears in an earlier post “My kids loves spinach” https://hotcheapeasy.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/my-kid-loves-spinach/) and never notices the difference when I serve the chard variation. He especially digs in when I use curly, frilly or curvy pasta that he can get his eager litle fingers all over– I am attributing that to a chromosomal enthusiastic male response to visual stimuli that I have been hearing a lot about lately.  That’s hot!

It is also fast and easy and really hearty-comforting.

Chard Pesto for Pasta (serves four)

1 lb. fiore (pinwheel) pasta

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

3-5 cloves garlic, chopped

(1/8 tsp hot red pepper flakes, optional)

1 lb. chard, washed, stems removed and chopped fine*

1 Cup broth or water

Salt and pepper to taste

Several Tbs grated cheese (preferably parmigiano reggiano or gran padano) or crumbled feta or, why not both?

Cook pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in a generous skillet with a cover. Add garlic and stir around for a minute or until turning golden and fragrant. Add hot red pepper flakes if desired. Add chard and stir to coat. Sauté chard until bright and beginning to wilt, then add water or broth. Bring to a simmer and cover, turning occasionally. The idea is for the chard to really soften, which will take 10-15 minutes. If you run out of cooking liquid, add a ladleful of water from the pasta pot. If I want the chard really fine (to encourage more consumption by my toddler, I will spread the cooked chard on a cutting board and chop some more when it is a bit cool.

 Drain pasta and mix with sauce and a generous amount of grated cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

*Save the stems, chop and use in another recipe; they are delicious as part of a stir-fry or just sautéed with onions to top burgers.

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It’s Winter and I Am Roasting (vegetables)

17 Jan

Moving and angst are natural partners. We’ve been moving upstairs and emptying a storage unit  this week — as in:

“I didn’t even know I still (or ever) had this!”

“Where the f**k did all this crap come from?”

“I have never seen a dust mouse that big. Ever.”

“Oh God, how am I going to get all this done before the semester starts on Tuesday?”

“Leandro please don’t run in front of: the moving truck/hand truck/person trying to move a big box up the stairs/me. ”

“Sweet Jesus, the moving guy just looked in that long-unopened drawer before I  had a chance to remove the scandalous lingerie that I had completely (and sadly) forgotten about.”

…etc. etc. etc….

and add to that an aching, frigging back from said moving, ’cause the ten years that have passed since I last saw that stuff haven’t made me any younger. Heavy sigh.

So, our diet has not been virtuous – Chef Boyardee was on the menu more than once; reheated pizza, Cheese-Its, leftover Halloween chocolate, cheese and crackers, cheese and crackers, salty popcorn, basically a diet of shut-up food all in front of the T.V. and endless repeats of a Scooby-Doo video — where can I buy those Scooby Snacks, anyway, cause Lord knows they would fit right in with my current mode…

But within the frenzy, I have made some good food happen too, thanks to some of the very recipes you have seen here. The spinach sauce for pasta served for a couple of meals, especially because I used farfalle (bow ties), which Leandro really really digs (and which grip a lot of spinach).

I made the basic seasoned ground beef in a big batch, a third of which went into an impromptu pasta dinner for friends on Friday, another third into chili con carne with rice Saturday, then on tortilla chips with cheese today (Sunday) and another third is frozen for next week and the new semester.

I also roasted vegetables.  This is something I do all winter (it’s too damn hot in the summer to turn on the oven) and then eat the vegetables all week in different formats. This is just one version (as I continue to crave asparagus in the off-season). It really is best with the linguine, but I was pressed for time and my son is not yet interested in this kind of dish, so I just served it to myself (several days running) with leftover rice and a dash of soy sauce. I also gave a plastic tublet to Leandro’s godmother (a teacher) for her take-to-school lunch.

Roasted Vegetable Linguine

2 packets (about 20 oz) baby bella mushrooms, washed and sliced

1 lb asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 ½ inch pieces

1 bunch broccoli crowns, separated into florets

1 red pepper, cored, seeded and chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

5 cloves garlic, chopped

3 Tbs olive oil

½ tsp red pepper flakes

1 cup cherry tomatoes

½ cup white wine

½ lb linguine

½ cup torn fresh basil leaves or 1 Tbs dry oregano

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Toss all vegetables (except tomatoes and herbs but including red pepper flakes!) and oil into a large roasting pan and roast for 20 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Get your pasta water on the boil and prepare pasta according to package directions. Save ½ cup pasta water when draining.

Add tomatoes to pan and roast 10 more minutes. Transfer vegetables to a bowl. Set pan on two burners on medium heat and add wine, stirring and scraping off burnt bits. Simmer for 3 minutes or so, until wine has cooked off then add reserved pasta water.

Return pasta to pot, add vegetables and liquid from pan. Warm to serving temperature and add herbs.

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Three common ingredients = one uncommonly good pasta sauce, FAST

5 Jan

So we spent another evening in the emergency room and Leandro got another four stitches, this time in the forehead. With that kind of excitement going on, you can be sure that once the chocolate ice cream dinner for brave boys was up, I was STILL going to be too tired for anything elaborate in the kitchen.

Marcella Hazan to the rescue. This queen of the kitchen’s Essentials of Italian Cuisine is a much loved and much soiled recipe book over here. These days I don’t have the resources for some of the more ambitious dishes, but her tomato sauce with onion and butter is simple and perfect: three ingredients resulting in one glorious, sweet, rich sauce that you barely have to stir!

I have adapted it slightly to make it even faster (puree, rather than whole tomatoes, adjusted the butter, for example). The beauty of this one is that it can be done in the time it takes you to boil up the pasta.

Marcella recommends potato gnocchi under the sauce, but the pre-prepared ones are generally yucky and I ain’t making gnocchi myself any time soon (oh for the heavenly days that Fabiola made it for me in Rovereto!).

These days I buy fresh ravioli from Fairway Market (no preservatives and a variety of fillings – $6 for 24) and actually freeze it. It breaks off into convenient serving sizes and takes about 15 minutes to cook after you drop them in the boiling water and the boil comes back. They re-heat pretty nicely, so I make extra for my little guy’s lunch box, just adding a dab of butter to the hot ravioli so it doesn’t stick.

I used cheese ravioli this time. “Mama I really love this!”

 

Steamed broccoli can be dipped in the sauce

Tomato with Onion and Butter

28 oz. can tomato puree

6 Tbs butter

One onion, peeled and cut in half (I prefer red onion for extra sweetness, but use whatever you have; yellow is fine)

Cook all three ingredients together in a deep pot with a lid at medium to low heat until the fat begins to separate from the tomato (about 20 minutes, or the amount of time you spend boiling the pasta). The longer you cook it, the sweeter it gets, so if you have more time, use it!

Spoon over your favorite pasta and serve with loads of good grated cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano or Gran Padano)

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My kid loves spinach!

2 Nov

So yesterday’s lentil soup got the thumbs up from the little guy, who had it over rice this evening (spicy chorizo bits removed), and from his godmother, who took her share to work today for lunch (spicy chorizo bits most definitely left in!).

While we were eating that, I took my own advice and put a pot on the boil, because in my life you always have to be thinking about the next day’s grub.

The quicky solution for tomorrow’s lunch? What I call spinach pasta. It originated from the aglio-olio-pepperoncino dish that I learned to make immediately upon moving to Italy many years ago.

The original recipe is just good extra virgin olive oil, sauteed garlic and some hot, red pepper flakes on spaghetti. Couldn’t be more simple or more tasty. Somewhere along the way I started adding chopped spinach to the mix. Then, when Leandro was born, the hot, red pepper flakes fell out (which is really too bad, but, I anticipate, only temporary).

It became one of those sauces that I made a lot of, pureed and froze in ice cube trays to defrost for his lunches once he was eating solids and going to daycare.

(Important mommy note: start your kids on strong flavors from the beginning. Bland is bullshit and starts you on a long and boring road of pasta with butter and crappy chicken nuggets from which you and the children may never entirely recover).

Now that he’s a big boy, he gets the spinach chunkier and he loves it with loads of grated Romano or Parmigiano Reggiano or Gran Padano — I spring for the real grating cheese, as the powdered fake stuff is truly appalling. This is the recipe most requested by his caregivers at school! Make enough to freeze half and use it within a month.

BONUS EASINESS – frozen spinach works best! Yeah, I am a goddess.

Spinach and Garlic Pasta (serves 4)

1 lb  frozen, chopped spinach, thawed

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

3-4 cloves garlic, minced 

1/4 tsp salt

Abundant grated Parmigiano Reggiano, Gran Padano or other high quality grating cheese (do not add if freezing)

1 lb pasta of your choice (I like the corkscrew kind, like fusilli, because it traps more spinach that will then make it into a kid’s mouth). Use half the amount if freezing half the sauce.

Boil up the pasta following the package instructions and for God’s sake add the salt. Add lots of it. Please. Most of it will go down the drain and pasta cooked in bland water will taste like cardboard.

Now if I don’t feel like dirtying another pot, I just dump and drain the pasta when it’s ready and make the sauce in the same pot. Put it back on the heat to dry (lower it to medium), get the oil in there and warm it up, add the garlic, sautee until fragrant and just golden (lower the heat more to be safe), (ADD hot red pepper flakes now if you want some heat) then add the chopped spinach and coat thoroughly, warming through and adding about 1/4 tsp of salt. At this point, remove what you plan to freeze, then grate loads of cheese into the remaining spinach mixture. Add the pasta and serve, or pack up for heatable lunches the next day. Really. It’s that easy.

Variations: We get a lot of chard and collard greens and kale from our C.S.A. Remove the hard stems and chop fine, then give them the same treatment as the thawed spinach, except I cook it longer and add water in 1/4 Cup increments during the cooking until tender. I can fill it in with a last minute handful of spinach too. Leandro never knows the difference and dark leafy greens provide a lot of nutritional punch (even calcium!)

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Latin Seasoned Ground Beef: Transforms into sauce, stuffing, chili…and more

27 Oct
Basic Seasoned Ground Beef

You can build on this dish to make many different meals

Mondays don’t completely suck, but they are the busiest day of my work/mom week.

Out of the house with dressed toddler and breakfast and packed lunches in the car by 6:45 a.m., teaching and office ’till 2:15 then walk back to the daycare to pick up the little man; shopping or playground till 4 p.m. swim class (on the cheap at the county pool) then pick up vegetables at Sophia Garden C.S.A. (more on that in another post) to get home around 6 p.m. to make dinner — whew!

So, it is crucial that dinner be fast and and brainless and provide leftovers for the next day lunch.

WHEE-HEE!

This Monday was a triumph. Why? Because I had my Basic Seasoned Ground Beef at the ready. I make three pounds of it at a time, divide it in three and freeze it down in plastic bin things so when I am in a bind, I can do any number of things with it that get a relatively wholesome, tasty meal ready in a flash.

I had remembered to take a tublet out of the freezer in the morning, plus I had a bag of tortilla chips (organic blue corn are our favorites, low-salt works better, but oh well, not today) and cheddar cheese slices, so I was good to go.

Heated the oven to 350, spread the tortillas on a baking sheet, sprinkled some of the meat on top and sliced up the slices into thin shreds (why pay more for a chintzy bag of the pre-grated which is dry and tasteless?) and put it in for about 15 minutes, et voila! le diner.

Hot sauce for me (sriracha, my fave) and plain for the boy. Done! We usually have some sliced avocado on the side too, which counts as a vegetable in my world and should in yours too.

SAVE THE DAY!

Forgot to take the meat out? This is a problem many on-the-go moms I have spoken to say happens all the time. With Basic Seasoned Ground Beef, it doesn’t matter. You just switch gears. As Mark Bittman, The Minimalist from the New York Times and a personal hero, has suggested, whenever you get home, just put a pot of water on the boil, ’cause then you have it going for whatever comes up.

So I boil up some pasta (we love Bionaturae whole wheat organic – no kidding, better than white!) and dump the (still frozen) beef in another pot with a 28 oz. can of tomatoes (whole, peeled; diced; pureed – whatever I have) and an extra tablespoon of whatever dried herbs I am in the mood for (oregano for Spanish flavor; basil for Italian, for example; bay leaf never goes astray) and let that simmer up while the pasta boils. Grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Gran Padano on top and luscious!

FREE LUNCH

In fact, while we ate our insta-nachos this particular triumphant Monday, I had the next-day pasta on the boil and the remainder of my tublet of seasoned beef with half a can of tomatoes…easy-peasy.

The best part, of course, was that I actually had everything under control. Really! With a little more time, I might have taken the same beef, same 28 oz. can of tomatoes AND a 15 oz can of red kidney beans, added a tablespoon (or more) of chili powder and a tablespoon of cumin powder, put it on rice and called it chili con carne.

With loads of time, I would have boiled and mashed yuca and made Puerto Rican shepherd’s pie in the oven. What I am trying to say is that with a tub of Basic Seasoned Ground Beef in my freezer, I can do anything!

BASIC SEASONED GROUND BEEF (this is half of what I usually do to freeze. To do 3 lbs. at a time, double everything)

2 Tbs extra virigin olive oil

1 baseball sized onion, chopped

3-4 cloves garlic, minced (go for more if you like – I do!)

1.5 lbs. ground beef

(Optional1/4-1/2 C. chopped red pepper fresh or roasted from a jar)

1/2 tsp adobo powder* (if desired – I generally don’t use it, but some people love the extra salt and the umami)

1 heaping Tbs capers, drained

10 manzanilla olives (pitted and stuffed with pimientos)

(optional 1/2 cup tomatoes from a can – diced, chopped, whatever or a spoonful of tomato paste you need to use up)

Heat oil on high in a large saucepan until thin and fragrant. Add onion and cook, stirring, for two minutes until well coated and getting translucent. Lower heat to fairly low and cook for five minutes, add garlic and cook for another minute. Raise heat to high and crumble in ground beef, stirring and breaking up frequently until fully-browned. Spoon out fat or pour off (don’t make it too dry!) into sink (carefully!).

Return to heat, add red pepper, optional adobo, capers, olives and optional tomato. Mix completely. Lower heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes until fat begins to separate from sauce. Serve or freeze.

 *instead of adobo powder, mix 1/4 tsp salt and 1 Tbs mixed chopped fresh herbs (oregano, rosemary, parsley) or 1 tsp dried

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