Chive & Spinach Pesto

It’s not just the grass and tulips that are in full bloom: the chives are growing like gangbusters, too. Seeing all of those tall-but-still-tender chives put me in a pesto kind of mood. (Green + herb = pesto in my mind.) It’s still a bit too chilly for basil, though, so I opted to use chives and spinach instead. Not only is spinach another early-growing tasty edible, its fresh, sweet flavor offsets the garlicky nature of the chives.

If you’d like to make a raw, spicy version of this pesto, use baby spinach and simply toss everything in a food processor. I prefer a more mellow taste, so I opted to steam the spinach and then wring it out before adding it. (You don’t want watery pesto!) I also adore the nutty, warm flavor of sautéed garlic. Either way, you’ll have a plateful of spring flavors.

Chive & Spinach Pesto
Serves 2. Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used Tinkyada’s brown rice fettucini; be sure to get gluten-free pasta if you’re making a gluten-free dish!)
8 oz. baby or curly spinach (use baby if you’re making an all-raw pesto)
Garlic (optional)
Chives (if your chives are fresh and strong-flavored, start by only using about three individual chives; taste your pesto before adding more so as not to over-chive it)
Handful of pine nuts OR sliced almonds

Prepare pasta according to package directions. If you’re making raw pesto, toss remaining ingredients in a food processor — perhaps skipping the garlic altogether since chives are potent all on their own — and blend until smooth, drizzling in a bit of extra-virgin olive oil and a shake of sea salt before doing the final blending.

If you’re making a more mellow pesto, steam the spinach for 3 minutes or until wilted. Drain well, pressing the spinach into the side of the colander with the back of a large spoon to really get the water out. While the spinach is draining, chop the garlic and sautée it in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until just starting to turn golden brown.

Scoop the garlic into a food processor, add drained spinach and chives, and blend. Add pine nuts and blend again, scraping down the sides of the processor. Drizzle in a little more oil if you’d like a richer taste and smoother consistency. Salt to taste. (If you’re serving the pesto with cheese or something salty, you might want to skip salting the pesto.) Serve with cooked noodles, veggies, sautéed chicken, or as a dip for crudites or bread, garnishing with additional pine nuts if you like.

Since this pesto is made with chives and spinach rather than basil, it will keep longer in the fridge (basil oxidizes and turns black very quickly; chives and spinach do not). Leftover pesto can be kept for 4 days and is great for everything from flavoring soups — just stir in a spoonful! — to garnishing roasted veggies.

Enjoy!

Triple Allium Pasta

You might not know what an allium is, but you’ve already enjoyed eating one. Or three or four. The allium family includes two of the world’s most popular ingredients: garlic and onions. Plenty of other beloved veggies are members of the allium family: leeks, green onions (often called scallions), chives, shallots, and ramps (i.e., wild leeks).  And of course just saying “garlic” and “onion” doesn’t really do those alliums justice, because eaters enjoy everything from sharply piquant wild garlic with its tiny cloves to mellow, oversized elephant garlic with its giant cloves … and likewise, everything from pungent red onions to sweet Vidalias.

In the spirit of welcoming an early spring with an early round of alliums — they’re one of the first veggies to come up as soon as the weather gentles — I made a triple-allium pasta dish with three of my favorites: leeks, onions, and garlic. In my case, I deepened the flavor by sautéeing them in schmaltz (the drippings off a recent roast chicken that I had collected and kept in a glass jar in the fridge), but a rich-tasting pastured butter like Kerrygold would work, too. Or rendered bacon fat should you have any on hand. I often do since I always save the drippings from bacon whenever I make it. Pastured bacon is much, much more lean than conventional bacon — not to mention FAR more delicious! — but a few strips will still provide a spoonful or two of rendered fat to keep on hand to enrich just about any dish you can think of.

Triple-Allium Pasta
Makes enough for 2 good-sized servings. Feel free to double or triple as needed.

Schmaltz, rendered bacon fat, OR pastured butter or ghee such as Kerrygold or Purity Farms
4 leeks, cleaned* and chopped
2 medium yellow or white onions, chopped (if you want a really sweet dish, choose a large sweet onion)
8 to 10 cloves garlic, chopped
2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (be sure to use gluten-free pasta if you want a gluten-free dish)

Place a dollop of schmaltz in a large nonstick skillet and melt over medium heat. Add the leeks and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Add the garlic, reduce heat by a notch or two, and continue to cook for another 10 minutes, adding more schmaltz if the pan starts to get too dry and the veggies start to stick to it.

While the alliums are sautéeing, prepare the pasta according to package directions. I usually simmer my pasta for 8 minutes, so I like to start the pasta during the second phase of the allium cooking so that everything is done at the same time. If your pasta takes more than 10 minutes to cook, you might want to start off the recipe by cooking the pasta.

Drain pasta well and toss with the sautéed alliums. Feel free to serve this dish with a full-flavored aged cheese like Parmesan or even a blue like Stilton. Perhaps you might want to go the sweet route and pair your alliums with bell peppers or tomatoes. Maybe you’d even like to do both. Alliums are so versatile — especially when cooked — that you really can’t go wrong with them.

Enjoy!

* To clean a leek, peel off and discard the outermost layer. Cut off the tough dark green lower portion of the leek and discard. Hold up the leek by the root end and use a large sharp knife to poke through the leek about an inch away from the root end. Pull the knife straight down, cutting the leek in half but keeping it connected at the root end. Turn 90 degrees and repeat. You should have a quartered (but still held together) leek. Fan out under running cool water and hand-scrub the layers gently to wash away any dirt that might be trapped between the layers. Shake dry and chop, discarding the root end.

Broccoli, Avocado & Sausage Pasta

Want to get more efficient in the kitchen? Make multiple-pot meals. Heck, you’ve got four burners, so why not have them all in motion? If you simmer two ingredients while you sautée a third (and chop a fourth), your prep time will be only as long as the longest-cooking item of the bunch. For this meal, the pasta takes 8 minutes while the broccoli and sausage take 5 each, so we’re talking 10 minutes to make dinner. (That’s including the 2 minutes it’ll take for the water to come to a boil.)

I like my pasta a tad chewy and toothsome rather than mushy, so I tend to cook my pasta (and all whole grains) for less time than the package indicates. It’s easy enough to check the texture periodically and keep on cooking it if it’s still too chewy. Another plus of going with the “slightly undercooked” technique is that it takes more effort to digest chewy pasta/grain, which means less of a spike in blood sugar levels…which in turn is a good idea for everybody. It’s also nice to shave a few minutes off the prep time.

Broccoli, Avocado & Sausage Pasta
Serves 2 and can easily be doubled or tripled.

Cook the pasta according to package directions. While that’s burbling away, simmer the broccoli for 5 minutes. Drain pasta and broccoli separately or together. Sautée the sausage over medium heat for 5 minutes while the pasta and broccoli are simmering; prep the avocado while all three are going.

Toss the pasta and broccoli with the sausage and the pan drippings from the sausage. Add avocado, toss very gently once or twice, and serve immediately. How’s that for a ten-minute meal plan? The dish sans avocado can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

Enjoy!

* Be sure to get gluten-free pasta if you want a gluten-free meal!

Cilantro-Marinara Pasta

Conceptually speaking, one of my favorite things to do for dinner is to embellish something I already have. Creative embellishing is an ideal way to translate leftovers into new dishes. (Although there’s a lot to be said for the whole idea of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” — i.e., if you loved a dish the first time around, by all means skip the embellishing and enjoy it just as it is.) Creative embellishing is also a great way to use what you’ve got in your fridge rather than ignoring it and then wind up throwing it away a week later.

Incidentally, here’s a hot tip: if grocery economics seem complicated and not worth figuring out, you could always attach what you spend in cold hard cash to each item in your fridge for a week and then see how much $$ you’re literally throwing away on a weekly basis. I guarantee that’ll make you an even bigger fan of re-enjoying and embellishing your meals!

In this case, I had a bunch of cilantro I had initially purchased to make Indian recipes. Half of the bunch had been happily eaten; half of it was still sitting pretty in my fridge. Seeing as I also had some leftover marinara on hand, too, I figured I would put the two of them together and toss them with pasta for a quick meal. Marinara is such an easy-going sauce that it pairs well with almost any fresh herb, so you could use this idea to enjoy whatever kind of herb you might have on hand.

Cilantro-Marinara Pasta

Leftover marinara sauce (home-made or store-bought)
Fresh cilantro, basil, or any other leafy herb
Whole-grain pasta (make sure to get gluten-free pasta if that’s what you’re aiming for)

Cook the pasta according to package directions. While it’s simmering, rinse and then chop/mince the herb (or leave it whole). Although my favorite fresh herbs are cilantro and basil, this would also be nice with dill, oregano, or even mint.

While pasta is draining, heat the marinara in the pot the pasta was in for a minute or two, stirring often, until the sauce has warmed through. Stir in pasta and herb(s), starting with just a handful of herb and adding more to taste if you’d like.

Enjoy!

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Pasta

Roasted peppers are one of the most versatile ingredients to have on hand and also one of the easiest to make yourself. (You can buy jarred roasted peppers, but it’s much more cost- effective to pop some raw peppers into the oven.) And since most bell peppers are pretty big, one roasted pepper can go a long way: in this case, I had enough to make a batch of roasted red pepper hummus and also enough to chop and toss with tuna fish and extra-virgin olive oil to make a quick meal.

You can roast whatever kind of pepper you like. My favorite peppers are mild, sweet bell peppers — being a contact-wearer makes me leery of handling hot peppers — but if you like hotter peppers, look for poblanos. They tend to be on the spicy side and are especially nice to roast. (Poblanos look like pointy dark-green bell peppers.) The key is to roast until your pepper of choice is quite charred on the outside; this will make it easy to peel once it’s cooled enough to touch. If you have a gas stove and a penchant for playing with fire, you can poke a long metal fork through your pepper and hold it just above the flame to roast it, turning until all sides are blackened. I am a wimp when it comes to fire and prefer to use a closed oven for my pepper roasting.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

1 red bell pepper
4 cloves garlic, chopped
15 oz. can of chickpeas, preferably Eden (they use BPA-free cans)
1 T. tahini
Sea salt
2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used Tinkyada’s brown rice linguini)
Sweet paprika for garnishing

Make the oven ready for roasting by placing a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom-most rack. This will catch any potential drips coming from the pepper and will potentially save you tons of clean-up time. Preheat oven to 425F. Place pepper on the middle rack, being sure to center it over the foil. Roast for 10-15 minutes or until all sides are blackened and blistering. (The larger the pepper, the longer the roasting will take.) Remove and slip into a plastic bag. Seal bag and let sit until cool enough to handle. When it is, the skin should easily peel away. Do so over a cutting board, because water will leak out of the pepper as you handle it. Cut away the seeds and stem. At this point, if you’d like to save half of the pepper to use later, just put it in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 4 days. Or use all of the pepper in the hummus.

While the pepper is roasting, sautée the garlic in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until garlic is soft and fragrant. Slip into a food processor. Drain chickpeas, reserving the juice, and add chickpeas to the garlic. Scoop in tahini and sprinkle in some salt. Add the peeled roasted pepper and process until smooth. If the mixture seems too dry, add some of the reserved canning liquid OR a dash of water. (If you use the whole pepper, you probably won’t need to add any liquid; if you only use half the pepper, the hummus might be a little dry.)

Let the hummus sit and the flavors marry while you prepare the pasta according to package directions. Toss cooked and drained pasta with as much of the hummus as you’d like (leftover hummus makes a great dip!) and garnish with a dash or two of paprika. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Baked Pasta (with Homemade Marinara)

This is a tale of two culinary possibilities: turning a classic pasta dish into a pizza of sorts and how to save your summer tomato surplus without having to resort to canning. I’m all for canning, mind you, but it’s a lot easier to throw something into a bag than can it. The fact that you can combine these two possibilities is the…um…cheese on the pasta. (The savory version of “icing on the cake.”)

Freezing tomatoes and then making sauce with them months later — or, as in my case, 18 months later because I’d forgotten that I’d stuck my 2010 batch in my mom’s cavernous downstairs freezer — is ridiculously easy. First, wash and thoroughly dry the tomatoes, then trim off the stems and plop them into a gallon freezer bag. Freeze them.

When you want to use them,  put the frozen tomatoes in a large stockpot, fill the pot with enough water to cover the tomatoes, and bring to a boil. Let the tomatoes boil for about 3 minutes or until the skins start to look wrinkly. Poke one of them with a knife tip to see if the skin will easily jostle away. (This might take up to 5 minutes of boiling.) Use a slotted spoon to carefully lift the tomatoes one by one into a large bowl. Give them a few minutes to cool, then grab each one with your fingertips and let the inner flesh slip out, leaving the skin behind. Spill the peeled tomatoes — and any juice/water that dripped out of them — back into the stockpot. Mash the tomatoes with a potato masher. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and let them gently simmer on medium-low heat for at least 20 minutes to concentrate their flavor and get rid of some of the water that will inevitably be in them as a result of the freezing process.

Voila! You have a lush, garden-fresh tomato sauce that you can use however you’d like. Note: if you want a chunky sauce, wield your masher with discretion. If you want a velvet-smooth sauce, run the sauce through a food processor to get all the lumps out. You’ll never have to curse a summertime tomato excess again! (I realize this is a tad out of season, but I thought I’d mention it now so that it sticks in the back of your mind for the next six months and prompts you to look forward to an overabundant garden. Now that I know how easy it is to transform frozen tomatoes into a rich sauce, I’ll get a few extra plants this summer!)

Baked Pasta (with Homemade Marinara)

If you’re making homemade marinara:
1 large onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T. balsamic vinegar
Several pounds of fresh or frozen tomatoes OR at least 1 lb. of canned tomato sauce; if you use fresh or frozen tomatoes, follow the steps above to remove the skins and make your own sauce
At least 1 T. dried Italian seasoning OR 1 T. total of any/all of the following: thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, parsley, marjoram, sage
Sea salt

With the marinara (homemade or store-bought), include:
Whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used corn spaghetti in mine)
Hard Italian cheese such as Parmesan or Asiago, grated

Preheat oven to 350F. If you’re making your own marinara, heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat for 1 minute, then add onion. Cook for 5 minutes or until onion is soft and starting to turn golden brown. Stir in garlic and balsamic vinegar and continue to cook for another 2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant. Add tomatoes, spices, and a pinch of salt. (If you’ve made your own tomato sauce, you’ll need to use more salt; store-bought sauce has a fair amount already.) Gently simmer sauce over medium-low for at least 20 minutes to let the flavors marry. This is one you can walk away from: assuming you have a nice low simmer and not a furious boil, the sauce can chug merrily along without your supervision.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Toss pasta with sauce and place on an oven-safe plate. Top with grated cheese. Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melting and turning golden brown.

Leftover marinara can be refrigerated (in glass containers, please — plastic ones can leach when subjected to acidic tomatoes) for a week, or freeze in a suitable container for a year. I like to use my leftover marinara as a dip for everything from crackers to shrimp. Or put it on scrambled eggs. Or serve with chicken, or even stir into chili. Homemade marinara has endless uses…including as pizza sauce, which was also put to good use in the previous post about Tuna Fish & Spinach Pizza.

Enjoy!

Quick Creamed Spinach Pasta

Seeing as the Big Day is nearly here and everyone is rushing around like mad to get their holiday errands done, I thought I’d post a get-done-quick recipe that you can whip up to impress your guests (or yourself). The ingredients range from non-perishable to not-too-perishable and are simple enough to keep on hand. After all, who doesn’t like cheesy pasta and creamy spinach?

Quick Creamed Spinach Pasta
Figure on using about 2 ounces of pasta, 4 to 8 ounces of spinach (I like a lot of spinach), and about 2 ounces of cheese per person.

Whole-grain spaghetti of your choice
Frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (I run hot water over mine, squeeze the heck out of it, and let it sit in a colander for a few minutes)
Creamy, spreadable, herbed/garlicky cheese such as Boursin
Dash of ground nutmeg
Dash of sea salt

Cook pasta according to package directions and drain well. Toss pasta with remaining ingredients and place over medium-low heat for a minute or two to heat everything through. Told you it was easy! (Not to mention creamy and lush thanks to the Boursin.) If you’d like to make your pasta look extra-Christmasy, top with halved and bright-red cherry tomatoes.

Enjoy!

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts, Pecans & Cheddar

If you grow or make a miniature version of something, people invariably call it cute. Just think of fingernail-sized champagne grapes, baby cherry tomatoes, and the Mini-Cooper. (I’d say the cutest car in the world is the VW Bug, but since it only comes in one size, it doesn’t make the list.) The one jarring exception to this smaller-is-cuter rule seems to be the chronically underappreciated Brussels sprout. It’s gotten a boost lately because nowadays the individual sprouts are being sold on the stalk as a culinary novelty item — it looks a bit like a knobbly wizard’s staff — but the incredibly cute little balls of cabbage still aren’t getting the culinary credit they deserve.

The easiest way to prepare Brussels sprouts is to simmer them for 8 minutes or sautée them for 10, but you can also halve and roast the sprouts for an even more delectable effect. Or you can grate/finely chop them and include them in anything from slaws to stir-frys. To create this recipe, I opted to simmer them into a pasta dish. Their pleasant earthy-buttery nature makes them a natural match with other rich ingredients like nuts and cheese.

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts, Pecans & Cheddar

2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (use gluten-free pasta for a gluten-free dish)
About 1/4 cup chopped pecans
8 Brussels sprouts, grated on a cheese grater or finely chopped (grating is much quicker)
Pat of butter, preferably from grass-fed cows
Sprinkling of grated Cheddar cheese, preferably from grass-fed cows
Dash of nutmeg

Get water boiling for the pasta and prepare pasta according to package directions. While the pasta simmers, toast the pecans: place them in a dry nonstick pan and let them sit on medium heat for 5 minutes, occasionally shaking the pan and/or stirring them to make sure they’re toasting evenly. When they suddenly become very fragrant and turn a darker shade of brown, pull them off the heat and slide them onto a cool plate. Do not let them get blackened and burnt!

Add the Brussels sprouts to the pasta during the final 2 minutes of the pasta’s cooking time. Drain both when the pasta is tender-firm to the tooth. Slip the hot drained pasta into a large bowl and toss with a pat of butter. Add nuts and Cheddar, reserving some of the latter to use as a garnish if you like. Be sure to sprinkle a bit of nutmeg onto each portion before serving. Add freshly cracked pepper, too, if you like.

Enjoy!

Pasta Tossed with Tomatoes & Myzithra

When you think of Greek cheese, you probably think of salads topped with feta. Or — if you’re old enough to have frequented restaurants before the days of increased fire code safety — you think of cheese with flames shooting up from it and a waiter yelling “Opa!” (That dish, saganaki, is typically made with kasseri cheese and lemon juice. Fried halloumi cheese is delicious, too.)

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I used to adore another simple dish based on Greek cheese: the Old Spaghetti Factory’s pasta tossed with myzithra cheese. When I lived in San Diego, the Old Spaghetti Factory down in the Gaslamp Quarter was my favorite restaurant (where else can you dine inside an old trolley car?), and that dish was my favorite thing on the menu. Makes a lot of sense now that I know myzithra cheese is a member of the made-in-Greece-with-sheep’s-milk  family. My favorite cheeses are those made from sheep’s milk, and the Greeks — along with Spanish and Basque cheesemakers — are the masters of sheep milk.

Much to my delight, myzithra cheese is becoming more readily available Stateside. The dry, aged version, that is. I’ve never managed to find the fresh, soft version, although I hear it’s much like ricotta in terms of texture and possible uses. The dry, aged version is decidedly salty and savory and is perfect for grating. It doesn’t melt well, though, so don’t try to make macaroni and cheese with it. And you certainly don’t need to add salt to your recipe if you’re using aged myzithra. In this dish, the cheese’s inherent saltiness pairs nicely with the sweet juiciness of the tomatoes.

Pasta Tossed with Tomatoes & Myzithra
Serves 2, but can be easily doubled or tripled as you see fit.

2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (brown rice pasta is a tasty option and is gluten-free)
Chopped tomatoes (I like cherry tomatoes the best since they seem to be the juiciest, but use whatever you like best; I also like a lot of tomatoes, but again that’s your call)
Mzyithra cheese (a little goes a long way)
1 tsp. dried mint
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 T. extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly ground pepper

Prepare the pasta according to package directions. While the pasta is cooking, halve the tomatoes if they’re small or chop them if they’re larger than bite-sized. Grate about 1/3 cup of cheese and be ready to grate more to taste.

Toss the cooked pasta with the remaining ingredients and taste to see if you’d like to add more cheese. This would be lovely topped with chicken sautéed in balsamic vinegar — again, the sweetness of the balsamic would contrast nicely with the salty, savory cheese.

Enjoy!

Maifun Noodles with Garden Veggies & Bacon

This post is a two-for-one deal: it’s a continuation and an introduction! The continuation is the part where you make darned tasty use of your leftover high-quality, no-mess, baked bacon from the previous recipe. The introduction part is to let you know about brown rice maifun noodles. I stumbled across them at Westborn lately and have since seen them in a few other places (although they certainly aren’t — yet — mainstream). I daresay they’ll catch on fast given their delicate texture and quick cooking time. And the brown rice variety I found was 100% whole-grain! How fabulous!

Maifun is the Chinese term for what we’d call vermicelli noodles…although that’s actually an Italian word that means “little worms.” I promise that they’re far more appetizing than their Italian name implies. I think I’ll stick with the Chinese term. Can’t go wrong with a word that has “fun” in it.

You also can’t go wrong with a whole-grain (and gluten-free, since it’s made entirely of brown rice) noodle that cooks in 3 minutes flat. Its elegant appearance and mild flavor makes it a great choice to use as a basis for light, summery pasta dishes like this one.

Maifun Noodles with Garden Veggies & Bacon
Serves 2, although recipe can easily be doubled

Double handful green beans, trimmed and coarsely chopped
2 servings brown rice maifun noodles
1 mild pepper such as banana or bell, minced (if the banana peppers are smallish, you might want to use 2)
At least 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 to 4 strips leftover cooked bacon, crumbled or minced, preferably from pastured hogs (Applegate Farms is my #1 pick for bacon)
About 2 T. minced fresh herbs (such as basil, chives, or thyme; I used lemon thyme from my garden)
Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
Dash of sea salt & a few grinds of freshly cracked pepper

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add beans and reduce heat to medium-high or medium, whichever gives you a calm simmer instead of a furious boil. Simmer beans for 2 minutes. Stir in noodles and simmer for an additional 3 minutes.

Drain beans and noodles immediately and toss with remaining ingredients, seasoning to taste with the salt and pepper. Serve promptly.

Enjoy!

Creamy Southwestern Goat Cheese Pasta

While it’s simple enough to use a roux-based sauce to make a cheesy cream sauce for pasta, sometimes it’s easier to just toss a creamy, easily melted cheese directly into the hot pasta.  Especially when you stumble upon a cream cheese made with goat’s milk.  (Admittedly, I’m a huge fan of goat’s-milk and sheep’s-milk cheeses.)  If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s near you that stocks Goat’s Milk Creamy Cheese or if you’d rather stick with cow’s-milk cheese, go for Organic Valley’s cream cheese (made with milk from pastured cows) or make your own by straining whole-milk Greek yogurt overnight.  If you can find goat’s-milk cream cheese, though, grab it!  Its slightly tangy flavor makes it a little like sour cream, which makes it pair all the better with the salsa.

Creamy Southwestern Goat Cheese Pasta

This recipe serves two people, but you can easily multiply the amounts to suit any number of diners.

2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice, prepared according to package directions (I used corn pasta, which is gluten-free)
2 to 4 oz. goat’s-milk cream cheese, depending on how creamy you want your pasta to be
Several large spoonfuls fresh salsa, preferably Garden Fresh salsa (it’s the #1 fresh salsa in the U.S. for a reason!)
Several large spoonfuls of black beans, drained but not rinsed (I prefer Eden Foods beans since they’re in BPA-free cans)

Gently toss still-hot pasta with cheese until the cheese has melted. Add salsa and beans and mix again. Serve immediately, garnishing with fresh cilantro if desired.

¡Disfruta!

Spinach, Pear & Hot Dog Pasta

Although “sweet” and “savory” have become separate worlds in today’s American restaurants and home kitchens, in many cultures they’re freely combined: Thai salads with papaya and beef, the Hawaiian penchant for cooking pineapple with pork, Polynesian dishes featuring mango and shrimp.  Even European cooks used to blur the sweet/savory boundaries at will.  (Hence the tradition of mincemeat pie, a mixture of chopped meat, beef fat, spices, and fruit.)

I guess I’m either a culinary throwback or a Southeast Asian at heart, because I love having the contrast between sweet and savory on the same plate.  To me, one makes the other even more itself.  Kind of that principle about not being able to have light if you don’t have darkness, too, I guess.  (This probably also explains why my favorite meals are cheese plates — just give me salty, flavorful cheeses like sheep’s-milk Roquefort and a sweet, crispy fruit like an apple or pear, and I am a very happy diner.)

This sweet-and-savory love affair I have with food led me to combine two things that may seem like an unlikely gastronomic duo: hot dogs and pears.  Not just any old hot dogs, mind you, but rather Applegate Farms organic beef hot dogs, which are made with meat from pastured cattle and are not pumped full of nitrates and additives.  (“Ingredients: Organic Grass-Fed Beef, Water, Contains Less Than 2% Of The Following: Sea Salt, Celery Powder, Organic Onion Powder, Organic Spices, Organic Paprika.”)  These flavorful dogs are the perfect pair for a sweet, crispy pear.  Talk about creating a classically inspired dish with an American classic!

Spinach, Pear & Hot Dog Pasta

Feel free to make as many servings as you like, using suggested per-serving amounts as guidelines for the total amount of ingredients.

Whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used corn pasta)
Several handfuls of curly spinach
Applegate Farms organic beef hot dogs (figure on 1 or 2 dogs per person), sliced
Pear (about 1/2 pear per person), chopped
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt & freshly cracked pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add as much pasta as you want for your serving size (2 ounces of dried pasta is usually considered to be a serving). Take a look at the cooking time for your pasta and figure on adding the spinach during the last 2 minutes of the cooking time. If the pasta takes 9 minutes to cook, for example, set your timer for 7 minutes, then add the spinach and simmer for another 2 minutes. Drain both pasta and spinach immediately.

Place a large skillet over medium heat and add the sliced hot dogs. If you use a nonstick pan, you won’t need to add any oil; if you use a standard pan, you might need to add a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil to prevent the dogs from sticking. Sautée for about 4 minutes, flipping halfway through, or until the dogs are browned on both sides. Add the pear during the last minute of cooking.

Place pasta, spinach, hot dogs, and pear in a large bowl and toss to combine, adding some extra-virgin olive oil if the pasta looks/tastes too dry. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Pasta Carbonara with Mixed Greens

Carbonara is a classic Italian dish that’s surprisingly easy to make … assuming, that is, that you start with top-notch bacon and eggs.  There are several pluses to top-notch bacon: it tastes savory and rich rather than greasy and tough, you only need one strip per person, and top-notch bacon won’t splatter all over your stove as you’re cooking it.  (The reason cheap bacon splatters is because it’s been injected with brine — the watery brine turns to steam when you heat it, and then the popping drops of brine carry fat with them as they fly out of the pan.)

My current favorite bacon is Applegate Farms bacon, which comes from pastured hogs and can be found in unprocessed-food-oriented grocery stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.  And since you won’t be cooking the eggs much in this recipe — they’re simply tossed with the hot pasta at the end — try to find free-range eggs to use.

Pasta Carbonara with Mixed Greens

This recipe serves 2, but can easily be doubled or tripled.

2 strips good-quality bacon (see above notes)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used brown rice pasta)
Several handfuls mixed greens (the type normally used for making salad)
2 eggs
Sea salt & freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Place bacon strips in a wide saucepan and turn heat up to medium. (High heat will ruin pastured meats because they’re so much leaner than conventional meats and will cook much more quickly.) Let bacon cook for about 10 minutes or until it’s browning and starting to get crispy, flipping the strips every few minutes to cook them evenly. Add onions and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes to soften the onions.

Remove bacon from heat and prepare the pasta according to package directions. About 3 minutes before the pasta is due to be done, place the bacon back on low heat and gently fold in the greens. (Your goal is for the pasta and bacon to be ready at the same time.)

Working quickly, drain the pasta, then place it back into its still-hot pot. Crack the eggs over the pasta, add the hot bacon mixture, and use a pasta fork or tongs to thoroughly toss the eggs and bacon with the hot pasta. The heat coming from the pasta, bacon, and pot should be enough to turn the eggs into a creamy, opaque sauce that clings to each strand of pasta. If the eggs don’t seem to be “cooked” enough, place the pot over low heat and keep tossing the mixture for a minute or two. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve immediately, garnishing with a dusting of Parmesan if you like.

Enjoy!

Indonesian Peanut Noodles

Natural peanut butter is one of my favorite foods.  Not only does it taste so good that it’s addictive, it transcends sandwiches and chocolate cups to create lusciously creamy soups, sauces, and sautées.  PB is also easy enough to make yourself: just put 1 cup of unsalted peanuts, 1 tablespoon unrefined peanut oil, and a dash of sea salt into a blender or food processor and whir away.  You can determine how crunchy you want the PB to be by simply blending it until you reach your desired consistency.  Same goes for the salt level — you decide.  Or try various brands of natural PB until you find the one you like best.  (My favorite is the Trader Joe’s Organic Crunchy Salted PB.)

Indonesian Peanut Noodles with Carrots & Snap Peas
This serves 4. Recipe can easily be doubled.

4 servings whole-grain noodles (I used brown rice noodles, but 100% soba noodles — made entirely out of buckwheat — would be another great choice)*
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1″ matchsticks
8 ounces snap peas
Drizzle of unrefined peanut oil OR extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 or 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce, depending on how salty you’d like your stir-fry to be (be sure to choose wheat-free tamari/soy if you’re making this a gluten-free dish)
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 tsp. ground ginger
Fistful of fresh cilantro leaves (I adore cilantro, so I use a lot of it in my dishes, but you can notch down to a few stems’ worth of leaves if you’re not a huge cilantro fan)

Bring large pot of water to a boil and add pasta. Take a look at the cooking time required for the noodles, then subtract 5 minutes from that. When the timer goes off, add the carrots and peas to the same pot and keep simmering for another 5 minutes. (My noodles took 10 minutes to cook, so I simmered the noodles alone for 5 minutes, then added the veggies and simmered it all for another 5 minutes. This saves you from having to cook the veggies separately.) Drain noodles and veggies and set aside.

While the noodles and veggies are cooking, drizzle the oil into a pan and heat over medium-low heat for 1 minute. Add garlic and sautée, stirring often, for 3 minutes or until garlic is starting to soften. Stir in tamari and PB and let the mixture cook for 1 minute. Add lime juice and ginger and cook for 1 or 2 more minutes. At this point, the mixture will be fairly thick and bubbly, so add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water (start with one and see how it looks) to thin the sauce. You should wind up with a creamy, light-brown sauce.

Remove pan from heat and stir in cilantro. Toss sauce with noodles and veggies and serve immediately, garnishing with a wedge of lime if you’d like.

Enjoy!

* Both brown rice and 100% soba noodles are gluten-free, but whole-wheat noodles would work in this recipe, too.

Marinated Mushroom Marinara

Marinated mushrooms: those tasty fungi at the end of grocery-store olive bars that pretty much everyone ignores.  I must have passed by the garlicky little suckers a dozen times before I even registered their presence.  Once I tried them, though, I knew they’d be delicious in a wide variety of dishes … not to mention served alongside olives.  (To me, the Holy Olive Bar Trinity consists of green Niçoise olives, marinated mushrooms, and marinated lupini beans.)  The mushrooms’ slightly tangy taste and soaked-in garlic flavor make them ideal ingredients for chilled salads, stir-fried chicken dishes, tomato-based sauces and marinades, and darned near anything that would benefit from garlic (which is nearly everything) and a rich earthiness (which is more than you’d think).

Adding marinated mushrooms — or marinated artichoke hearts, come to think of it — to pasta and marinara is an obvious culinary coup.  I suppose you could let the garlic in the mushrooms speak for itself, but I say, any excuse to add more garlic!  Toss in a few more aromatics and veggies, an herb or two, and you have a marvelous ten-minute meal.

Marinated Mushroom Marinara
This recipe serves two, but it can easily be doubled, or you may wish to serve it as a side dish.

2 servings of whole-grain pasta of your choice (my current favorite is Tinkyáda’s brown rice pasta)
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium tomatoes, chopped, or a handful of halved cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup marinated mushrooms, chopped
A few leaves of fresh basil, sliced into thin strips*
A few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves only*

Prepare pasta according to package directions. Drain, toss with a drizzle of oil, and set aside.

Drizzle about 1 T. of oil into a medium skillet and place over medium heat. Sautée onions for about 5 minutes or until translucent and turning golden brown. Add garlic and cook for another minute, stirring often. Stir in tomatoes and mushrooms, reduce heat to low, and let simmer, uncovered, for about 10-15 minutes. Stir in herbs, toss with pasta, and serve immediately. Sauce is best served warm, but leftover sauce will gain flavor as it overnights in the fridge, and it only takes a minute or two to reheat the sauce.

Enjoy!

* If you’re using dried herbs, add them with the tomatoes and mushrooms.