Jenmenke

Road Warrior

pasta

The Kids Cook Monday Four. Morgan Take Two!

Chanterelle Morel Mushroom with Pasta and Cream Sauce

No, we couldn’t find Morgan’s beloved Chanterelle mushrooms so she had to settle for *sigh* locally harvested and dried morel mushrooms that I’ve been saving for a special occasion.

It was a difficult sacrifice for me.

I’m all for Kid’s Cook, but I’m not necessarily “all for” depleting my morel stash.

But I had to try to jolly the surly, soon-to-be-16-year-old-girl somehow. And my benevolent offer of morels seemed to bring her out of her funk.

You see, I made this amazing and totally spontaneous Chanterelle mushroom and pasta dish for our second to the last Meatless Monday of 2010. Ever since then Morgan has been swooning about a repeat. And frankly, I’m not sure I could repeat it, even if I had all the ingredients. That’s the curse of a throw-and-go cook like me.

I’ve long given up trying to compete with any true food blogger. Those people freak me out. I imagine them with notepads and dirty pans writing every little thing down, dates, results, etc. Why don’t we ever read about their cats walking across the top of their rising bread loaves? (sorry Jeanette!) And where are their kids?

Because mine are constantly yelling at me from some distant room, requiring me to stop what I’m doing and wander around the house yelling, “What?!” What??!!” “MORGAN? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU YELLING MY NAME FOR??!!!”

…Only to walk back into the kitchen and completely forget that I was broiling the top of a potato dish. A few minutes later, I might lift my nose in the air like a dog and wonder, “what is that delicious smell?” Only to remember another minute or two later that there is something in the oven that is now blackened and smoking.

That, by the way, is also the curse of my new oven that requires the door shut to broil. That is a serious issue for me — since I can’t remember anything these days. That partially open door was always a good cue for me and now, alas, I have that cue no more…

So the idea of quickly and randomly throwing ingredients together for a last minute meal being repeated on memory alone is, sadly, impossible.

Otherwise I would have posted such a brilliant success here with the recipe.

Morgan doesn’t understand that about me, so it was with utter confidence that she asked me to write down the recipe for her so she could duplicate her new favorite meal, but with morels instead of chanterelles.

I tried.

She thinks she failed.

But I’m pretty sure it was the recipe.

Either that or the chorizo.

You know me, I’m always wanting to throw some tasty, fatty meat in there at the end. So I convinced her to dice up some chorizo to throw in with the mushrooms.

We loved it. She didn’t.

It started out so pretty, with golden sauteed shallots

I say she added too much pecorino and that’s why it got so rich and thick. (note: WE thought it was delicious.)

She says my chorizo ruined it for her.

Regardless if it was the recipe, the chorizo or the cheese, she handled the many stages and steps like a pro, boiling the noodles while the sauce bubbled away and the artichokes in the pressure cooker did their thing.

The sauce was finished a bit early, which thickened it more than she would have liked. (Again, note: WE thought it was delicious)

And when the artichokes were ready for the table, they made it there as mere shadows of their former selves, since the three others in the family simply can’t control themselves around artichokes… Lucky I got this picture before the mayhem descended with arms reaching in and butter dripping all over.

And here it is in all its glory:

She thought it was lame.
WE thought it was delicious.
She’s too critical of herself.
She obviously doesn’t take after me.
The poor thing.

Meatless Monday 40

Normally this stuff just flows from my fingers without pause. But it is confirmed. I officially dread writing about Meatless Mondays.

This post has been half-finished for over a week now. And I won’t let myself post anything new until I get it done. The agony… of bad pictures and uninspired writing.

But you have to give me kudos for trying. And trying I am still. The past two weeks we have had two — actually three — meatless dishes. But remember, oh yee of actual vegetarianism: I consider fish and shellfish to be meatless. So I know that negates at least one of the dishes for the truly hardcore.

And, as usual, I lack photos. The days are getting shorter here in Minnesota. A lot shorter. And we eat late. I mean really late. I’m not all that concerned about photography when I’m frantically trying to get dinner on the table before 9 pm.

I’m also not a writer dedicated to showcasing my photography to the point of making meals in the middle of the day in order to style the dish and photograph it on a sublime background in the pleasing light of the setting sun. Do you know how many people actually do that? It is truly mind boggling. You can go ooh and ahh over their posts. Here’s a funny irony: my friends shake their heads at me and say “Where do you find the time…” and I shake my head at all those beautiful photos on those beautiful blogs and say “Where do they find the time…”

No, I grab the closest camera and snap. Flash and all.

Did you know that flash photography is the horror of all horrors? Seriously. Another little known fact for all you non-food-blogging types. Which, I hope for my sake, are most of you reading this.

But I have  two Meatless Monday winners that I haven’t posted before, so I should at least share the basics. The first, Meatless Monday 40, is a dish I tried to replicate from the old Sidney’s Restaurants here in the Twin Cities. They made this spicy sausage with peppers in tomato cream sauce which I just loved. I came up with a recipe that I thought came fairly close. Of course it wasn’t quite as good, because I could never knowingly use as much cream as they did and still enjoy eating it.

That’s probably why we all like to eat out so much. Because ignorance is bliss. Well, I guess I can’t slap that generalization on The Pioneer Woman who starts every recipe with a pint of cream and a stick of butter, but she is a CATTLE RANCHER, for goodness sake. I sit on my butt all day doing graphic design for free. I have to live by different rules.

Anyway, I recently made this for Meatless Monday, sans the italian sausage. The sausage was sadly missed but the dish was still surprisingly good.

Spicy Penne with Tomato Cream and Sweet Red Peppers*

* The photo shown above does not show this incarnation of the recipe. It shows Meatless Monday 36, when I made it with sage and yellow peppers and lots of oregano. It wasn’t nearly as good, though I did love those big pasta tubes! I recommend the following version of the dish. While the recipe is not precise, the herbs are more subtle and the red peppers more plentiful.

  • 1 lb Penne or Rigatoni pasta, cooked al dente in salted water
  • 1 small onion diced
  • 1 clove fresh garlic minced or 3 cloves Garlic Confit mashed
  • 1-2 cups of diced or pureed tomato — canned or fresh or combo — amount depending on your love of tomatoes
  • ~ 1/2 cup  half and half or cream — amount and type depending on your love of a flat stomach
  • 1 t red pepper flakes
  • 1-2 t sugar
  • 1 sweet red pepper sliced into skinny strips– green works if it is winter and red peppers cost as much as truffles.
  • 1 t dried thyme (or 1T fresh)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup fresh pecorino shreds — or parmigiano  if you are rich

Obviously there is no rocket science here. Saute the onion in a bit of olive oil over low to medium heat until translucent. Add the garlic and saute another minute, then add the tomatoes, thyme, salt, pepper and sugar and cook on low for a bit — maybe 10 minutes or so. About 5 minutes before serving add the peppers and cream. I like my peppers to stay firm and not be mushy. If you like them soft, add them earlier. Don’t let the cream boil.

Toss the half pasta with the sauce, adding pasta until you get the consistency you like. (I use about 3/4 of the pasta usually and save the rest for eating with butter. mmm). Sprinkle pecorino over and serve hot!

*******

Something I discovered that you probably already know: heat your pasta bowl in a very low oven (250 or so) for 10 minutes before tossing your pasta in it. I was always afraid to do this with my big, pretty bowls. But as I get older, I don’t care as much. Maybe it’s because I have more bowls. Anyway, IT MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE and keeps the pasts SO FRICKEN HOT for so much LONGER. It makes me feel like I’m eating it in a restaurant where I never fail to marvel, “How the heck do they get the pasta this hot?” Now I know.

Meatless Monday Twenty!

So, I had bookclub on Monday this week. Didn’t prepare ahead and have Meatless Monday on Sunday. Didn’t cook meatless for my family before I left. Didn’t do much of anything, really. Except have a rotten, horrible day. I can’t remember everything that happened, but Monday was bad, bad, bad.

I was late to bookclub as usual, but what to my wondering eyes should appear?

But a Sheilabird cooking Meatless Monday for Jennie, so dear!

Yes, it’s true. My friend Sheila cooked a Meatless Monday meal in my honor! Well, I don’t know if it was really in my honor, but she said it was, and I am choosing to believe her. Of course, I didn’t have my camera. And of course everyone was freaking out about me taking pictures with my iphone. So they all stink. The pictures, I mean. Not the guests. But really! What’s so bad about a nasty picture on my blog? No one reads the stupid thing except you guys, and you don’t care, do you?

Anyway. It was lovely. Sheila’s bookclub dinners always are. She served something she made last fall called Indian Relish (Is that right, Sheila? I’m too lazy to call you) over cream cheese with those wafer-thin crackers that remind me of ice cream cones. The relish reminds me of pepper jelly, sort of sweet/onion/hot… So good

And she had an awesome zinfandel.

Which I promptly spilled on her brand-new-not-even-finished-quilted tablecloth.

So uncouth.

The main event was what she calls Green and White Pasta, even though we all know pasta isn’t really white. Maybe the white should be the green onion. Anyway, it’s a recipe that originally called for broccoli that she has morphed into a conflagration of green veggies. Any you have on hand, really. She used asparagus (AND DIDN’T CALL ME FOR ANY!), peas, thin green beans and green onions.

Yuk! I just found a wood tick stuck into my shoulder blade. I saw it in the mirror last night and thought it was a zit. Sorry. I guess I thought you’d want to know that…

This is how you make it:

Green & White Pasta, serves 8

  • 1 lb Pasta. Pick a fun shape. She used Campanelle, but also likes Gemelli.
  • 6-10 cloves garlic minced (to taste)
  • 4 T olive oil, divided
  • 1-2 t red pepper flakes (to taste)
  • 1 small bunch asparagus (figure about 12-16 spears)
  • 1 cup green peas
  • 1 bunch green onion
  • 1 small bunch chives (if you haven’t killed them all with Round-Up yet), chopped/minced.
  • 1 small bunch haricot vert (thin green beans)
  • juice from 2 large lemons
  • 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
  • 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted. (to toast, spread on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 8 minutes. WATCH CLOSELY! better to under-toast than to over-toast.)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Blanch the asparagus and beans till just tender crisp and chill in an ice bath. Drain and cut into approximately 2-3″ pieces. Cook the pasta in well seasoned water until just al dente, drain. In a large heavy bottomed pot, big enough to hold the entire dish, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat and add garlic. Saute until fragrant, about a minute. Add green onions and pepper flakes, saute another minute. Add the beans, asparagus, peas and chives to the pot. Saute until warmed thru. Add the cooked and drained pasta to the mix, gently stirring to combine. Add another 2 tablespoons (or more to taste) of olive oil. Add the lemon juice and parmesan cheese. Stir until everything is hot and combined. Top with toasted pine nuts and serve with more parmesan on the side.

Enjoy!*

* I hate when waiters say “Enjoy!”

Meatless Monday Fourteen!

Linguine with Tomatoes & Shrimp (for lack of a better name)

Disclaimer: Recipe adapted from Pioneer Woman’s Penne Pasta a la Betsy.

Why didn’t I just make it easy on myself and duplicate Pioneer Woman’s no-doubt delicious recipe? Well, for one — and you should know this by now — I didn’t have at least one main ingredient (penne). But there are a host of other reasons, as well:

  • I have yet to find a PW recipe that doesn’t call for a cup of cream, and I’m still recovering from the last PW recipe which involved a cup of cream and a stick of butter combined with a gaggle of blue cheese, served over a grilled steak. Honestly? Fatty thought she was going to die.
  • I wanted to use a fresh tomato
  • I hadn’t committed to any particular recipe when I started cooking the pasta. (No, I have not learned my lesson yet from Meatless Mondays One and Thirteen.)

Another reason was that I didn’t have any shrimp. Or at least I didn’t think I had any shrimp. I had thoughts of making a pasta with just tomatoes, at first. Then, in the middle of cooking, it just seemed so blah. “I wish I had some shrimp,” thought I. So I threw some boots on and ran up to the loft (the studio apartment above our barn where my parents live when they are in town).

Lo and behold, a brand new bag of frozen ready-to-cook shrimp. Thanks Dad! (I’m pretty sure he did not know about this until now.)

So it became Pasta with Tomatoes and Shrimp.

It was good.

We dined on it almost a week ago. So why so late with the post? I lost my USB SD card reader, I’ve been in meetings all week, wrote this days ago, didn’t have a photo, heated some leftovers up on the way to a 50th birthday lunch (no, not for me!) today and am racing to get it up before the end of the day.

Recipe?

Basically, it went like this…

  • Saute 3 cloves Garlic in olive oil and butter (less than half of what PW uses)
  • add about 20 medium shrimp to garlic and flash fry over high heat about a minute. Remove and chop shrimp
  • cook a box of linguine in salty water
  • Add a bit more olive oil to same pan you cooked the shrimp in, add another clove of garlic, saute.
  • Sauté about 1 cup chopped onion until translucent
  • Add 1/2 c white wine and bubble a few minutes over medium heat.
  • Add 1 chopped tomato, saute a few minutes
  • Add 1 8 oz can Tomato Sauce
  • Add 1 T dried oregano
  • Add 1 T dried basil
  • Add 1 t red pepper flakes
  • Salt and Pepper to taste, simmer
  • Then finish with 1/2 c half and half
  • Heat to simmer and stir in shrimp
  • Then stir in drained noodles
  • Top with toasted pine nuts and good grated pecorino cheese.

What? Why Pecorino cheese?

Because I’m so cheap that that’s what I bought last time at Costco instead of the Parmesan, which was more than double the price. It is simply delicious. It is multi-tasking cheese. And I appreciate that.

Pioneer Woman’s looks way better than mine. It probably tastes way better than mine, too–how can it not with all that cream and butter? Take a look and judge for yourself:

pasta betsy 150

I call a do-over.

Meatless Monday Nine

Lentil Meatballs with Tomato Cream Sauce

I forgot to take the final picture again. Should I have it for lunch so that I can rectify this recurring nightmare?

(pause for 30 minutes.)

Yes. I really did go heat up, photograph and eat the leftovers for lunch. It was good. And now I have a picture. Win-win.

I continue to agonize about what stuff to make on Meatless Mondays. It seems I am constantly being foiled on one level or another through this whole deal, and yesterday was no disappointment. I returned back from a ski trip with Dave (hence no new posts last week) to find my house destroyed, no food in the house, dishes and laundry up to my eyeballs.

Kidding.

I only said that to upset my Mom, who has begun to read my blog. I like to keep things interesting for her and make sure she is paying attention. Because you see, she and my dad are the the ones who stayed at my house with the kids.

The house was fine. She did the laundry.

All they really did ‘wrong’ was eat the shrimp I was planning to use for Meatless Monday yesterday.

Which was entirely fine, as I had another plan up my sleeve.

A few weeks ago, Jennifer Perillo, a friend on Twitter, posted an intriguing photo and labeled it “lentil ricotta meatballs.” They looked so good and have been on my brain ever since. The timing was perfect, as she posted the recipe last week. Just in time for me!

I won’t retell her delicious recipe story. You can find out all the details by visiting her yourself. She is an amazing cook. Very inventive and creative. Not like me at all. I have very few epiphanies where I entirely create my own thing. Rather, I put my own spin on other people’s things. Necessity being my mother of invention, since I refuse to go to the grocery store to buy necessary ingredients.

Anyway, I digress. Visit Jennie (yes, she spells it the same as me) to find out how to make these delicious meatballs step-by-photographed-step.

Mine were successful, but next time, I would make a few adjustments to my process. My beans were runnier than hers and I needed more bread crumbs. I would, for sure, recommend going the extra mile with the bread crumbs. I used some from a can in my pantry. They were almost a year old. I could taste them. And I would have preferred to taste some of my own delicious bread used as bread crumbs.

I also used pureed cottage cheese in place of her homemade ricotta.

Cuz I was lazy.

That, too, would have made a yummy difference.

I also threw in some additional italian seasonings of oregano, basil, and garlic.

Finally, my sauce. I used frozen tomato sauce made last fall from the garden, which was good. Added some really wrinkly grape tomatoes (which weren’t)…

…garlic, sage, red wine, about 1/4 cup of half and half, and a dash of sugar. The sauce was good. I just wish we’d have had more, because when I put the meatballs into the sauce, they seemed to cannibalize it. I think they absorbed some of it. Which would have been just fine if there had been enough to start with. Still. Were I to do it again, I’d keep them separate until the end.

In hindsight, I would have also changed one other thing.

I would have lied to Charlie that they were made with lentils.

He was totally freaked out. Not that he doesn’t like lentils, because he does. He just couldn’t get his mind wrapped around the fact that the meatballs were made out of lentils. So he picked and picked. Finally ate them and liked them. He kept staring at the innards and saying, “I don’t get how these are lentils.”

Plain and simple: lying would have been the way to go.

Meatless Monday One

I already regret my New Year’s Resolution.

I lost track of time, like always.

Every January I am struck by a strange and unstoppable compulsion to clean, organize and declutter every closet, shelf, cabinet and drawer. It doesn’t matter what my calendar says or what other promises I have made for the day. I suddenly and inexplicably find myself with a rag in one hand cleaning the outer corners of a pantry that hasn’t seen a mop or a vacuum in at least two years.

That was a few days ago. Monday, it was the two junk drawers in the kitchen and the book shelves in the living room. It took all day. I don’t know why it took all day, but it did. And I was exhausted by the end of it. My donation pile grew and my satisfaction along with it. Until… I realized… oh shit. MEATLESS MONDAY!

And by now, of course, you all know that a quick run to the grocery store was not an option for me.

What to do, what to do.

I run by the Tasty Kitchen in a frenzy. My scattered brain and frantic fingers can hardly concentrate. Morgan wanted butternut squash pasta or ravioli. No time for that. Besides, no butternut! (hear that Michelle? NO BUTTERNUT!) What do I have… what can I make….

Perhaps because the idea of Morgan’s butternut pasta was somehow lodged in my psyche… I don’t know. I don’t know what possessed me to consider the roasted carrots in the freezer from the fall of 2008. Who knows how my brain works.

But defrost the carrots I did.

And it was all downhill from there.

Oh, I gave it a nobel effort. But from that very first decision, I was lost.

So, yes. I promised to write about each meal. But you won’t be needing this recipe. So I’ll save you all the lovely photos of the process.

Except maybe this one:

mmm. I bet that makes your mouth water, doesn’t it?

Maybe the same feeling you get right before you throw up.

Here’s another detail about the night’s festivities: I must have been asked six times, between the hours of 5 and 7, what I was making. Dave even called from the car out of curiosity.

What could I say?

Baked Wheat Pasta with Pureed Carrot Sauce? Are you kidding me?

With ginger, garlic, wine, half and half, orange juice, thyme, sage, pine nuts and ricotta? Because I just kept adding ingredients with the hope that it would begin to taste like something other than year-old roasted carrots from the freezer?

What would you have said?

So I lied.

(Don’t worry. They don’t read this so they’ll never know. I told them it was indeed butternut squash.)

And they believed me!

And they ate it!

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Except for the fact that we all had to add about a cup of liquid to our plates in order to make it edible. I added half and half. I mean it’s Meatless Monday, not Fatfree Friday.

But I still think bacon bits would have improved it.