Marinara sauce and meatballs

I wanted to stock the freezer when my husband was out of town recently, so I decided to make tomato sauce and meatballs along with batches of breakfast burritos and veggie burgers. I have never had much luck making homemade sauce, and this is the happiest I’ve been with a batch. Same thing with the meatballs. They’ve never had enough flavor for me, but I love these. I guess the trick is the half pork, half beef mixture, and the use of bread soaked in milk instead of breadcrumbs. I used the leanest beef and pork I could find and they still came out great. Next time I’d probably add some tomato paste to get the sauce a little thicker, but otherwise I followed the recipe as found here. Click for the meatballs.

And the fabulous result:

Kale risotto

We got kale in our farmers box for the first time this week, and I was a little skeptical that we’d like it since we’re not crazy about some other greens. So, what better way to try it than surround it with creamy, cheesy risotto? I honestly couldn’t taste the kale in this recipe, but it was delicious, as risotto usually is. So I’m still not sure whether I like kale, but this was certainly a winner. We ate it with a salad full of fresh vegetables from our CSA. 

Kale Risotto, from epicurious

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (box)
3 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 bunch kale
1 1/4 cup onion, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice (or medium grain)
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Bring broth and water to boil along with salt in large pot. Cut ribs and stems from kale, and add to broth to cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 5 to 10 minutes.
Transfer kale to colander or sieve set over a bowl and squeeze out excess liquid. Add liquid back to broth and keep warm. Chop kale.
Cook onion in oil and 1 tablespoon butter with remaining 1/4 teaspoon sea salt in a wide 4-quart heavy pot, covered, over low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Increase heat to moderate, then add garlic and cook, uncovered, stirring, 1 minute. Add rice and cook, stirring, 1 minute.
Add wine and simmer briskly, stirring constantly, until absorbed. Stir in 1/2 cup simmering broth and simmer briskly, stirring constantly, until broth is absorbed. Continue simmering and adding broth, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring and letting each addition be absorbed before adding next, until rice is creamy-looking but still al dente (it should be the consistency of thick soup), 17 to 18 minutes. (There will be leftover broth.)
Stir in kale, cheese, and remaining tablespoon butter and cook, stirring, until heated through and butter is incorporated, about 1 minute. Season risotto with sea salt and pepper and, if desired, thin with some of remaining broth.

Cooking when there’s no time to cook

I’ve really slacked on my blog since school started, but I am at least still cooking most nights. But we’ve been so busy we haven’t been doing the CSA thing because food was going uneaten. We’ve slowly been trying to get back into it, and I even spent one Sunday night cooking freezer meals that we’re still eating three weeks later. Now we can supplement with vegetables from the farmer’s market without the whole meal being much work.

On Sunday night, I cooked:

An entire bag of brown rice, which I portioned into 2-serving sizes in freezer bags
Yummy bean burritos
Two quiches-I used this recipe in two premade pie shells.
Chicken Souvlaki dump chicken (sounds appetizing, huh?) It is.
Sweet and hot pasta sauce

And later in the week, I made sloppy joes and froze the leftovers. I did them on the stovetop, not in the slow cooker.
I also made barbecue chicken in the crockpot, which we ate over baked potatoes and then froze the leftovers.

By now we’ve finished the quiches, all but one of the burritos and about half of the meat dishes. We still have pasta sauce and some rice I’m going to use this week in shrimp fried rice. I think I’ll spend another night cooking like this in a couple weeks, since finals will be fast approaching!

Last-minute meal

Likely because law school is taking so much of my brainpower, I somehow convinced myself that I’d picked up a spaghetti squash at the store a week ago. Since then, my husband had gotten the rest of ingredients for what was supposed to be our dinner a few nights ago. It was getting late when I discovered the missing ingredient, but a quick Google search saved us from takeout. We had a butternut squash, some bacon and one sheet of Trader Joe’s puff pastry, which managed to create a delicious (although not too healthy) meal in 30 minutes. 

Butternut Squash, Bacon and Carmelized Onion “Pizza,” adapted from epicurious

One-half large butternut squash or one small one, peeled and diced
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed for 10 minutes and rolled out slightly
6 slices center-cut bacon
1/2 large onion
1 tablespoon rosemary, minced
8 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 450. Boil squash in salted water for about 10 minutes or until soft. Drain, cool slightly and mash. Working with puff pastry, score around edges a half-inch from edge. Poke interior all over with tines of fork. Bake pastry for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cook bacon in skillet. Once done, remove and set aside to drain on paper towels. Chop. In skillet, cook onions until soft and slightly browned. Put mashed squash on puff pastry and top with remaining ingredients. Cook 5-10 minutes or until heated through and pastry is browned.

Saffron risotto with butternut squash

A while ago (sorry, Richard!) I got an e-mail from a friend telling me about one of his friend’s horrendous food allergies and asking me if I had any recipes he could use. I started thinking about it, but then law school started and I never followed up. The first thing that came to mind, though, was risotto, and all this time I’ve been thinking about when I’d get the chance to make it. This weekend I finally used a recipe I bookmarked some time ago. I absolutely love all of the components, but together, I wasn’t sold. The sweetness of the squash didn’t work for me with the rest of the ingredients. It was still good, just not as good as the asparagus or butternut squash and sage variations I’ve made in the past (which all follow the same basic method).

I’m really tired/feeling lazy, so here’s the link to the recipe. I followed it fairly closely except for using bacon and cutting down the proportions a little. I think swapping the squash for shrimp would be very good.

Clean out the fridge pasta

Law school has started and every student group is having its initial meetings this week. To get us there, organizers promise free food, which means that over two days I’ve eaten pizza three times. Right now I feel like I’d be happy if I never had pizza from a cardboard box again. So tonight I was determined to come home and cook a real meal. We had all sorts of random stuff that I wanted to use up, so I found a pasta recipe that would cover the bacon, cheese and sour cream we had on hand. To that I added zucchini, tomato, a shallot and some spices. It was like an amped-up macaroni and cheese, and it was delicious! I’m already looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese

6 slices bacon
1 shallot, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini, cubed in 1/2-inch pieces
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 box (14.5-16 oz.) elbow noodles

1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup white wine or chicken broth
3/4 cup grated monterey jack cheese
1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp parsley

Cook pasta according to package directions. Cook bacon in large skillet until crispy. Remove to plate lined with paper towels and drain. Remove some grease from skillet to leave about 1-2 tbl. Saute shallots and garlic briefly, then add zucchini. Saute about 5 minutes or until tender. Stir in tomatoes and remove from heat. Cover to keep warm.
To make sauce, combine sour cream, butter, wine or broth and spices and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and whisk in cheeses until smooth. Toss together pasta and vegetables, then toss with sauce.

Sweet pepper pasta

In all the craziness over the past few weeks, I think my cooking skills actually atrophied. When I finally got back into it, I actually burnt some rice. And then I screwed up a very easy cake that I had made before without incident. I was kind of dreading getting back into a cooking routine, but the box of produce we got at the farmers’ market Saturday cheered me up. There were several colorful peppers, a watermelon, two other melons, cucumbers, okra, potatoes and apples. I suppose this signals a changing season is about upon us.

To use all the peppers except the purple one (apparently when you cook them they lose their color), we made this delicious pasta. I wasn’t sure it would be very flavorful since it had so few ingredients, but that turned out to not be a problem.

Sweet Peppers with Chicken Sausage and Pasta, adapted from this recipe

4 large garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 large red and yellow bell peppers (3 lb.), cut into 2-inch-long julienne
1/2 cup dry white wine
14.5 oz. penne (1 box Barilla Plus)
3-4 links chicken sausage, cooked according to package directions and sliced

Fresh Parmesan

Cook garlic in oil in a large heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until golden. Add peppers, wine, and salt and pepper to taste, then cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until very tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
While peppers are cooking, cook pasta in a 6-qt. pot of boiling salted water until al dente and drain. Toss pasta with peppers, add chicken sausage and season with salt and pepper.

Dust each serving with freshly grated Parmesan.

Zucchini lasagna

Twenty-six years ago, when my mom brought me home from the hospital, my sweet dad cooked her this lasagna. And a blueberry pie! That might have been the last pie cooked by either of them, as I can’t recall one during my lifetime (my mom is more into cakes). But the zucchini lasagna finally saw the light of day again while I was home visiting my family this week. While looking for ideas for dinner in her old recipe box, my mom found this recipe in her handwriting on a lined piece of paper, so the origin is unknown. It’s an easy way to deal with a bounty of summer squash.

Zucchini Lasagna

3/4-1 pound ground beef
1 jar tomato sauce, or about 4 cups homemade
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp basil
salt
pepper
4 medium zucchini
10 ounces cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
1 egg, beaten
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown beef. Add sauce and seasonings and simmer, uncovered for 10 minutes. Slice zucchini lengthwise into slices 1/4 inch thick. Salt and microwave about 4 minutes, then pat dry. Arrange half of the zucchini in the bottom of a 8×12 baking dish. Season with salt and pepper. Combine cottage cheese and egg and spread over zucchini. Top with half of mozzarella and half of meat sauce. Layer with remaining zucchini, mozzarella and sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake uncovered for 40 minutes or until hot and bubbling and zucchini is tender. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Baked falafel

We got a couple of cucumbers in our box this week, and while I’m not a big fan of raw cucumbers, I love tzatziki sauce. So for whatever reason, I decided to try to make falafel, since I was recently introduced to it by a vegetarian friend. I wanted to cut down on the fat content a bit, so I took another reviewer’s advice to bake the patties instead of frying. We were very happy with the results. We served the pitas alongside these potatoes, which were super good also.

Baked falafel, adapted from this recipe
1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 egg
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash pepper
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup dry bread crumbs
4 pita pockets
1 medium tomato
1 (6 ounce) container plain yogurt
1/2 cucumber – peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon mayonnaise

In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don’t use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. In a blender, process onion, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into mashed chickpeas.
n a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray and bake patties for 10 minutes on each side, spraying patties with cooking spray before flipping. Then broil for a minute on each side or until nicely browned.
In a small bowl combine yogurt, cucumber, dill, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Chill for at least 30 minutes.
Serve two patties per pita, topped with sauce and diced tomato

Potato and squash torte

I ran across this beauty last week on one of my favorite cooking blogs, smittenkitchen, and since we had potatoes in our CSA box, I made sure to get some squash and zucchini also while we were at the market. The original recipe calls for it to be made in two 8-inch cake pans, but I made it in an 11-inch tart pan. I thought that meant I would need fewer ingredients, but my potatoes ended up being a little sparse on top. So while my execution wasn’t perfect, it still tasted very good.

Summer Squash and Potato Torte, from Bon Appetit, June 2001

1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
12 ounces yellow crookneck squash, zucchini or regular yellow summer squash, cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
6 teaspoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter two 8-inch-diameter cake pans or an 11-inch tart pan. (Directions below assume tart pan.) Set aside 1/4 cup sliced green onions. Toss remaining green onions, cheese, flour, thyme, salt and pepper in medium bowl to blend.
Layer 1/3 of potatoes in concentric circles in bottom of prepared pan, overlapping slightly. Layer 1/2 of squash in concentric circles atop potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/3 of cheese mixture. Repeat with 1/3 of potatoes, then rest of squash and 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/3 of cheese mixture. Top with 1/3 of potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/3 of cheese mixture and press gently to flatten.
Cover pans with foil. Bake until potatoes are almost tender, about 40 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered until tortes begin to brown and potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes longer. (Can be made 6 hours ahead. Cool. Cover with foil and chill. Rewarm, covered with foil, in 350°F oven until heated through, about 30 minutes.)
Cut each torte into wedges. Sprinkle wedges with 1/4 cup green onions; serve.