Grown-Up Mac and Cheese (Sort-Of)

This is delicious and fast…highly recommended!

Pasta with Butternut Squash

http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/recipe-of-the-day-pasta-with-butternut-squash/

Roasted oregano chicken breasts

A tasty and reasomably simple chicken recipe from Martha, adapted for my taste and the chicken I had. I didn’t use the large, whole breasts she specifies (which seem scary big – are US chickens larger?) but the kind of ordinary single boneless chicken breasts you buy in the supermarket (four single breasts). This was a plentiful amount for two, which was served with roast potatoes and a salad.

2 heads garlic, cut in half along the middle with a sharp knife
8 sprigs fresh oregano
4 single boneless chicken breasts
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper

1) Preheat oven to 200C / 400F. Rub garlic half with oil. Place each garlic half, cut side up, in the centre of a roasting tin (I actually baked this on the rack above the roasting tin while the tin itself held the roasting potatoes, and it worked well). Place two sprigs of oregano over each half. Rub chicken breasts with oil and salt and pepper to taste. Place a chicken breast over each garlic half.

2) Roast for about 30 minutes (if you do roast potatoes with, let them roast for 20-30 minutes before adding the chicken so they crisp up), or until juices run clear and meat is cooked through.

3) Serve! The garlic should be soft enough to squeeze out of the peels and is really nice as a condiment here…

A Twist on Thanksgiving

Although I love cooking and food, Thanksgiving has never really been a favorite holiday of mine.  I’ve never enjoyed turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, or pumpkin pie, so the Thanksgiving feast usually turned into a sad little plate of mashed potatoes and cranberry jelly.  The rest of my family wasn’t averse to experimenting with the traditions, though, and we’ve developed some very tasty twists on the tradition.

My aunt made this turkey recipe, and it was delicious.  It doesn’t have the impressive presentation you get from roasting a whole bird, but it sure tastes a lot better:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/dining/12mini.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=braised%20turkey&st=cse

One of my favorite recipes of all time, which fits perfectly into a Thanksgiving feast (or really any other meal) is spicy roast sweet potato wedges.

Spicy Roast Sweet Potato Wedges:

1 tsp coriander seed
½ tsp fennel seed
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp dried red pepper flakes
1 tsp kosher salt
2 lb medium sweet potatoes
3 Tbl vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 425; grind together first four
ingredients; cut potatoes in 1 inch wedges; toss
together with oil, ground spices and salt. Spread
out in a shallow pan, roast 20 minutes; turn
wedges over; roast an additional 15-20 minutes, until golden and tender.

Happy Thanksgiving!
-Emma

Mom’s Easy Chicken in Vodka Sauce

My mom made this for me when I came to visit for a weekend; it tastes like you spent hours slaving over it, but only takes about 15 minutes to make!

2 chicken breasts (Mom cuts them in half width-wise to make them cook faster)
flour to coat chicken
a pat of butter
2 tomatoes, cubed
a splash of vodka
a splash of cream

Lightly flour the chicken, and pan fry it in the butter.  If you cut the chicken breasts in half, this will only take about 2 minutes on each side.  When the chicken is cooked, remove it and turn off the heat.  Deglaze the pan with the vodka.  Turn the heat back on, and add the tomatoes.  Now add a splash of cream, and pour the vodka-tomato-cream mixture over the chicken breasts.  Ta-da!  That’s it!

Enjoy!
-Emma

Stuffed Peppers (another version!)

Ingredients:

1 large pepper per person
25 g. peas
handful of mushrooms
50 g. rice
1 Tbsp. Cream Cheese
3-4 meatballs (or veggie balls) optional
olive oil

Slice the top off the pepper, and cut in half lengthwise if it will not stand upright of its own accord.  Remove all pith and dice a good bit of top.  Put aside.

In a small-medium pan, boil the rice for 10 minutes.  Add the peas after 4 minutes.  When ready drain and return to pan.

Mix the cream cheese, mushrooms, and meatballs into the rice and peas.

Place pepper on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil, and stuff with mixture.  Drizzle again.

Place baking tray on middle shelf of oven preheated to 190 C for 20-30 minutes.  The longer they are cooked, the crispier the rice becomes.

Enjoy!
-Juliet

Haruki Murakami’s stir-fried beef

No photo, because I actually made this recipe about three months ago and only remembered it today. It’s delicious and has a wonderful provenance to boot. I was reading Haruki Murakami’s elegant ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ and at one point the narrator makes a dish for his wife with onions, beef and green capsicum with some soy sauce and beer. It sounded simple and delicious, and, overcome with a strange craving for this very dish, I threw together something based on it (sans beer and using mixed capsicums, not just green). Served with rice, it’s not only lovely but literary.

Haruki Murakami’s stir-fried beef

500g beef, diced into chunks (or indeed cut into fine strips…those will cook faster, of course)
1 onion, sliced
Capsicums, sliced. I used about two and a half, I think: red, yellow and green. I think using multicoloured capsicums here is lovely for visual purposes, but if you prefer the taste of one or the other, please use that instead.
A dash of soy sauce, about a tablespoon or two, to taste
Spring onions, chopped into rounds, optional
Vegetable oil

In a frying pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat and add the beef. Brown on all sides and then cook for a few more minutes, then add the sliced onion. Stir occasionally. Cook until the onion is lightly browned, then add the capsicum, stirring. Cook until soft. Add the soy sauce and stir it through. Check the beef. You may need to add a little water or stock if it’s not yet cooked through. If you do, cook it until it bubbles away.

Serve scattered with spring onions and alongside some steamed rice. Some lightly blanched bok choi or kai lan would go nicely with this as well, I think!

Eat well…life is too short not to!
Chloe

Black beans and rice

This rather marvellous dish was introduced to me by Emma. As delicious as it is lovely to look at, it, like many one-pot meals, improves with age.

Black beans and rice

Serves about 4 – 5

about 250g black beans, soaked for six hours
about 250g rice
about 1 red capsicum, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 onion, chopped finely
2 tomatoes, diced

Boil beans for ten minutes and then simmer for about 50 minutes, until cooked. Black beans need to be boiled for ten minutes at least to destroy the toxins.

Suate onion, garlic and capsicum until slightly soft. Add tomato.

Add black beans, raw rice and water (a bit more than you would normally use to cook the same amount of rice). Simmer for 20 – 40 minutes – however long it takes for the rice to cook through. Not all of the water should be absorbed, though…

Serve with hot sauce.

Eat well…life is too short not to!

Chloe

Pasta Salad Nicoise

This has been my favorite summer dinner since I was little.  It involves lots of chopping, but really isn’t hard other than that.

Salad:
1/2 pound seashell pasta
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1/2 pound blanched green beans
14 oz. canned tuna fish
1 cup sliced red Bell peppers
1 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup scallions
1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted and sliced

It looks very pretty if you layer these in a glass bowl, and toss it at the table. 

Dressing:
1 egg
1 cup corn oil
1/4 cup wine vinegar
1/4 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp. minced parsley
2 Tbsp. fresh dill
1 tsp. dried basil
1 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 oz. anchovies with oil, or a squeeze of anchovie paste

Beat the egg, than gradually add the oil before adding other ingredients.  Pour atop the salad, and toss.

Enjoy!
-Emma

Lasagna of love

No photo because we devoured this. The lasagna recipe below is a take on this one, which I changed slightly to take into account different ingredients and to serve more people. We are clearly hungry people, because my version, which virtually doubled the recipe, was shared between four.

As to the baking medium: Martha recommends (for her recipe, which is half of mine) an 8×8 inch square baking dish. I used a large round casserole dish which was very deep.

Healthier lasagna

10 lasagna sheets, soaked in a bowl of hot water to soften (NB: you may need more or less sheets. Ten was what worked for me)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium-to-large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 zucchinni, cut into half-inch chunks
500g ground beef
about 9 tablespoons tomato puree
300g cottage cheese
125g ball mozzarella, shredded
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons finely grated parmesan, plus more to serve

Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius.

Heat oil over medium-high in a heavy pot with a lid. Add onion, zucchinni and garlic (I don’t have a large pot so I did it in batches, which worked fine). Cover. Cook, stirring occassionally, until zucchinni chunks are tender, about ten minutes. Add ground meat. Cook it until no longer pink, breaking it up with a spoon . Add tomato puree and cook until thickened, 3 – 5 minutes. I also threw in one fresh tomato towards the end

Combine cottage cheese and 1/4 cup parmesan in a bowl.

Remove noodles from baking dish. Discard water.

Spread about 1/3 of the meat mixture in the bottom of the dish and cover with noodles. Spread 1/3 of the cheese mixture over the noodles. Do this twice more (1/3 meat, noodles, cheese each). Sprinkle with mozzarella and remaining 2 tablespoons parmesan.

Bake for about 30 – 35 minutes, until lasagna is bubbling and cheese topping is golden. Let stand about ten minutes before cutting and serving.

Eat well…because life is too short not to!

Sicilian pasta

I didn’t expect this recipe to be as good as it was. I’d never eaten anchovies before, but I’ve resolved to be more adventurous in my eating habits, so I tried not to let my apprehensions stop me; besides, I was cooking for two, and this looked simple and quick… Still, when I was frying the anchovies and garlic, I was feeling nervous and started to wonder if my friend would be able to polish off most of the pasta…

I tasted it to check the seasoning and started eating out of the serving bowl. If not for the fact that I’d had two square meals prior, I could have eaten the whole bowl. Something about the combination of anchovy, parsley and parmesan drove me completely wild. This is delicious. This is beyond super-speedy. This is extremely, extremely cheap. This is based on store-cupboard staples and a bit of parsley. And it is wonderful.

Sicilian pasta

What I made would serve four (I have leftovers)

I used about 250g pasta
3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped finely
50g tin anchovies, drained of oil and rinsed, chopped fine
About 1 cup breadcrumbs, preferably fresh (I didn’t measure; it was a couple of handfuls).
About 1 cup parsley, chopped finely
about 50g freshly grated parmesan, grated finely
4 tablespoons olive oil (didn’t have any; used vegetable oil and a little butter for flavour, which worked fine)

Cook pasta. While cooking, heat oil in a frying pan and throw in garlic and anchovies. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Smush up the anchovies as much as you can; they do something magical and seem to simply melt away…

Throw in the breadcrumbs. Take off the heat. Add the parsley. Toss.

Drain pasta, but not too completely (there should be a little cooking water included to prevent the breadcrumbs-sauce from becoming too dry). Throw pasta in frying pan and toss through.

Transfer to serving bowl. Scatter over parmesan and toss to distribute it evenly. I did this in a couple of batches so that it transferred evenly.

Eat well!

Chloe

PS original recipe here