“faux”-caccia

i haven’t given up on my mission to find one hundred uses for trader joe’s pizza crust. granted, this one isn’t as imaginative as tuna melts 2.0 or caramel apple rolls, but it’s still yummy and not your mother’s standard pizza. (unless she’s italian. or my mother, who makes a wicked old-school focaccia, complete with spritzing dough with water throughout the baking process, blah blah blah.)

start with two whole onions. i used yellow and white, but you can use whatever you have around.

slice thinly, and add to a dry frying pan over medium heat.

cook for a long time. i mean like, 30 minutes. and add just a pinch or two of sugar for sweetness about halfway through.

it may look like awful things are happening to your pan

but never mind, it comes off. (and it has a fancy name: fond. i did not make that up.)

cook until the onions are soft and brown and totally “melted.”

when they’re done, stir in salt, pepper and fresh, chopped parsley (if you have it) for freshness.

next, i olive-oiled a 6-inch (i think? maybe 7-inch?) foil pie pan. this helps make the crust more like traditional focaccia crust.

pat in the dough, drizzle with more olive oil, sprinkle with salt (the larger grain, the better, like kosher or finishing) and use your knuckle to create dimples.

this is all to make it more like traditional focaccia.

bake at 475 for about 10 minutes, or until about halfway done.

remove from oven, pile on onions, sprinkle with a little parm, and return to oven for another 10 or so minutes,

until the crust is done and the onions get a little browner.

greek-style lentil soup

as you’ve probably noticed around here, i’m a big fan of lentils. here’s another recipe for lentil soup with a different flavor profile than the last one (which was cumin-y).

i started with two red onions, 4 large carrots and three cloves of garlic. (if you must, you can add celery, too, but just don’t tell me about it.)

i chopped these and cooked them on med-low heat until the carrots were tender and the onions were translucent.

most lentil soup recipes tell you to add your water or broth, then add the lentils, but the recipe i was rifting on wanted you to add your lentils at this step, so in they went.

also went in: dried parsley, dried oregano, freshly ground pepper and a little less than a tablespoon of soy sauce. soy sauce? indeed – an easy way to add both salt AND flavor.

i stirred this around to coat everything the spices, and then added a cup of chicken broth and two cups of water. and a two bay leaves.

bring to a boil, then simmer for about half an hour until the lentils are tender. i like mine al dente, which means a little less cooking time, but if you want yours softer, cook a little longer.

when it’s done cooking, taste for spices (needs more pepper? more salt?) and then take the pot off the heat and stir in red wine vinegar. i used three tablespoons, but i recommend adding one at a time and tasting to make sure you don’t over do it.

to serve, drizzle with about a teaspoon of olive oil and another teaspoon (or more, if you like tangy!) of red wine vinegar and scatter with chopped flat-leaf parsley.

green eggs and pasta

this is by far, the weirdest recipe i’ve ever made (up). and i literally didn’t know where it was going to end when i started.

i had very little in the house and i was trying to make something at least half-way healthy (as in, not tapioca cream!).

i remembered a cold pasta salad recipe from mark bittman, where he said the main idea was actually spinach salad with pasta rather than pasta salad with spinach, and i thought that was a good starting off point. except that it’s winter, so you better believe i’m going to make something warm.

anyway, i started by cooking some garlic-parsley linguini.

then i roughly chopped some baby spinach.

before draining my pasta, i took out some of the pasta water.

this is always a great idea – especially if you don’t exactly know what your sauce is going to look like – because you can add it at the end to make any sauce both thicker and wetter at the same time (if that makes any sense…).

i put a little water in the bottom of the sauce pot (one-pot dinner!)

and added the spinach for just a minute or two. (incidentally, spinach is one of those vegetables that is actually healthier when you cook it slightly. heat releases the good stuff.) then i dumped the hot pasta on top

and poured a little bit of cream over it, thinking i’d go for light alfredo-y sauce.

but then i remembered i had an egg, and decided to switch gears to a carbonara-y sauce.

so i turned the heat way down under my pasta and beat the egg with a little pasta water, salt and pepper.

then i poured it over the pasta and let it cook until it just started firming up. if you cook it too long, you’ll get scrambled eggs and pasta, so take it off the heat a second before you think it will be ready since it will keep cooking in the pot.

serve with cheese!

overall, it needed a little extra salt, but that’s allowed. otherwise, the flavor was good and the sauce was smooth and velvety. that’s what i call kitchen improv.

tuna melt 2.0

as a child, my favorite sandwich was the tuna melt. as an adult, my favorite sandwich may be the tuna melt from pot belly’s. (where else can you find tuna salad without celery in it except my own kitchen?!)

so, using my all-time favorite ingredient (trader joe’s pizza crust), i revamped the tuna melt for dinner.

i started by draining my tuna really well. i usually just squeeze the water out in the can, but i wanted the filling very dry so it didn’t mess up the dough.

then i cut carrot matchsticks. one of the best parts of pot belly’s tuna melt is the carrot. it’s genius.

i mixed the tuna with a spoonful of mayo and a large spoonful of mustard.

now, i realize my mom just about had a heart attack reading that because usually i say that tuna salad just isn’t worth eating without about an entire jar of relish in it. for some reason, though, i just thought the mustard would be better with the carrot… and drier in the filling. i don’t know, ok! it’s a tospy turvey world.

there was also salt, pepper and garlic powder involved.

and a lot of cheese.

then i rolled the pizza dough, cut it into fours and filled it like my mini calzones.

except this time, i folded the edges under

and cut slits in the top to let out steam.

brush with a little olive oil and bake at 450 degrees until golden brown on top.

serve with baby broccoli for a complete dinner, or reheat for lunch on the go.

turkey meatballs with spinach

these are super tasty, easy to make, healthy, and heat up well to eat all week. the spinach makes you feel healthy, and keeps them moist.

what you need:

– 2.5 pounds ground turkey
– one ten ounce package of chopped frozen spinach, thawed. make sure you squeeze out the liquid, too. you’ll be shocked how much there is.
– the white and light green part of about 6 or 7 green onions chopped finely. i used to use regular onions, but found that they didn’t cook enough, so ended up still almost raw at the end which wasn’t very nice. plus, green onions have a bit of a milder flavor.
– 3-5 garlic cloves (depending on your taste!) minced super duper fine or grated on a microplane. again, you want the garlic pieces small because otherwise it won’t cook all the way and you’ll bite down on a piece of raw garlic, which isn’t the best experience.
– 1 egg, beaten a little before adding.
– 1/4 milk.
– 3/4 cup bread crumbs – i use italian seasoned kosher bread crumbs (they are super handy to have around), but if you use regular bread crumbs, throw in whatever italian spices you have, like oregano, dried parsley, basil, etc.
– 1/2 cup grated cheese, like parmesean
– salt, pepper and a bunch of worchestershire sauce, if you’ve got it.

mix all ingredients together well. hands work best for this.

just keep in mind that like anything else, ground meat can get tough if it’s handled too much, so mix well – you want all your ingredients spread evenly throughout – but don’t overmix. it’s a fine line, but also not the end of the world if you cross it.

preheat the oven to 400 degrees. i like to bake these on a wire rack over a cookie sheet to keep them from stewing in their own puddles of fat. it does give them oddly shaped little bottoms, but i think it’s worth it. (don’t forget to spray the rack with something nonstick, or give it a quick wipe with some olive oil.)

i also make these meatballs fairly large so one is pretty much big enough for a lunch – the recipe makes 10-12 that size. if you prefer your meatballs smaller, feel free.

bake for 25 minutes, then flip them over and let the other side brown for about 5 minutes.

serve hot or cold, alone or with pasta, or sliced in a sandwich with some ketchup!

mushroom soup

easy, healthy and delicious. i like to make a big pot on sunday to eat all week.

start by chopping 1 and a half cups of onion and 1 cup of carrots.

sautee in a little olive oil or butter until tender but not brown.

then slice one pound of mushrooms.

remember not to wash them – just wipe clean with a paper towel – and don’t worry too much about the shape because they’ll cook down.

add mushrooms and a couple minced cloves of garlic to the other veggies.

cook until soft.

then add salt and pepper to taste, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (yum), 1 teaspoon thyme, and 1 tablespoon dried parsley (if you have it). stir to coat veggies with the spices and cook for about a minute.

then add 3 quarts (12 cups or 96 ounces) of chicken or vegetable broth.

at this point the recipe calls for 1 cup barley, but i decided to make this version with brown rice instead. i used 1 cup.

i also added 1/3 cup mahogany wild rice. because it will add pretty color and texture and because i had it lying around.

bring soup to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook covered until rice (or barley) is done, about half an hour (the barley takes 2 hours).

it should be a fairly thick soup, but the rice didn’t behave quite the same way as the barley (in terms of a thickening agent), so next time i’ll use a few less cups of broth when i’m substituting rice. but because it was too late for that here, i added 5 tablespoons of cornstarch (dissolved in 5 tablespoons cold water) to get it to the thickness i was looking for.

[adapted from one of my mother’s classic recipes.]

shrimp and tomato spaghetti

one evening i was sitting at work browsing some food blogs, and i came across a lovely picture of shrimp pasta.

shrimp pasta is not actually something i generally think about, and it’s certainly not in my usual rotation of weeknight meals, but it looked so good…i ran home and made it.

turns out it was tasty, easy, healthy and cheap enough to make again often (around $15 for two servings). AND i was able to grab everything i needed at the little market in my building, so i didn’t even have to make a grocery store run. double credit!

start by getting all your ingredients ready. i’m not one to usually be this prepared, but the sauce comes together so quickly (and you do NOT want to overcook your shrimp!) that it’s best to take a moment to prep.

you need: about half a small can (or in this case, a third of a large can) of chopped tomatoes (or whole canned tomatoes chopped, whichever is available), the shrimp (frozen or fresh. if you use frozen, go about the recipe the same way, just make sure the shrimp fully defrost during their time in the wine), a little less than a cup of frozen peas (these can definitely be left out, but i had some leftover in the back of freezer, so why not add some color and a serving of veggies?), some leftover white wine (about half a cup? maybe a little more?), a handful of chopped cilantro or flat-leaf parsley (you only use flat-leaf parsley, right? none of that curly-leaf, please) and a slice of lemon.

start your water boiling. i used parsley garlic pasta (which is why i didn’t put any garlic in the sauce, but you make that call depending on your own taste and preference for garlic).

start by heating a small sautee or sauce pan to medium-high. salt and pepper the shrimp, then add them to the pan and start them cooking.

once they start to brown just a little, add the wine, tomatoes and peas.

cook until the shrimp are pink, but seriously, don’t overcook. nothing worse than a tough shrimp.

add the cilantro or parsley and stir to combine.

then drain your pasta, put it back in the hot pan, and dump your shrimp, et. al. on top. mix well to coat the pasta with yummy wine-tomato sauce.

add a squeeze of lemon before serving.

dump-and-guess veggie chili

who doesn’t love chili? no one, that’s who. so i decided it was the perfect thing to have in a big pot when our families came over to help decorate the tree.

infinitely variable, this was truly a joint dump-and-guess endeavor, which means while there’s no actual recipe to share with you (why would i have a recipe?? this is only a food blog…!), i want you to see how not-scary chili is and how hard it is to go wrong.

we started with dried beans, which we pressure-cooked for about 40 minutes in vegetable broth and some basic chili spices – pepper, oregano, cumin. (but no salt! salt apparently slows bean-cooking in a pressure cooker.)

if you don’t have a pressure cooker or don’t want to start with dried beans, canned beans can be substituted. i like a mix of light and dark kidneys and black beans in my chili.

while that was happening, i sauteed half a yellow onion, a few small cloves of garlic and a whole bunch of baby carrots in a little olive oil in a frying pan.

(i would rather not have used baby carrots, but the blizzard of ’09 cleared out the grocery shelves. and i mean, i get it, right? carrots would be such a horrible thing to without during a snow storm…)

if you aren’t starting this chili in a pressure cooker, sautee the onions and carrots (and the evil vegetable-that-shall-not-be-named, if you must) directly in your soup pot, adding the beans when they’re done.

sautee until the onions are translucent and the carrots are starting to get tender.

next i added a couple spoonfuls of drained, crushed tomatoes.

why crushed tomatoes, you ask? because i was dumb and bought the wrong thing at the grocery store. i should have bought chopped tomatoes.

why drained? because i didn’t want to make the chili too soupy, but i ended up adding it in later so if you didn’t skip this ingredient all together, you can skip the draining.

however, i am thinking that the delicious deep, sweet tomato flavor this chili ended up with may have come from the crushed tomatoes, so in the future, i might actually make that “mistake” again.

but i do like chunks of tomatoes in my chili, too, and lucky for me, i had a small can of chopped tomatoes in the cupboard, which i added with the juice.

at this point, you want to start seasoning. i used a small spoonful of molasses for a deep, sweet flavor; chili powder, of course; more cumin; salt and pepper; a few shakes of worchestershire; and a small dash of red wine vinegar.

how much of each, you ask?

i have no idea. we both just kept tasting and adjusting until we liked what we had. i think it would be pretty hard to mess this up.

you can also adjust the liquid, bringing it to a boil to cook some off if there is too much, or adding a little tomato juice, vegetable broth, or even water, if you need more.

i served with brown rice, and it was even better the day after.

savory noodle kugel

according our old friend wikipedia, kugel is “is any one of a wide variety of traditional baked jewish side dishes consisting of ground or processed vegetables, fruit, or other starches combined with a thickening agent (such as oil, egg, or flour). it is sometimes translated as ‘pudding’ or ‘casserole’.”

this definition surprised me, because i thought kugel was always sweet with nutmeg and raisins. but then, i’m a good episcopalian girl, so what do i know?!

anyway, since i’m always looking for good (and healthy and quick) non-meat entrees, i decided to make a mushroom and onion version of kugel. served with blanched green beans, i figured it made a nice balanced comfort-foody meal.

i started by sauteing one medium onion and one small container roughly chopped mushrooms. this ended up actually not being enough veggie, i think, given the amount of noodles i used, so either start with more veggies (and honestly, throw in whatever you have, just make sure it’s about halfway cooked at this stage) or use a smaller dish and less noodles.

next, mix up your eggs, a splash of milk and salt and pepper. i used four eggs for this ratio, but you want enough to just reach the top of the noodles in the dish.

(full disclosure, i started with only three eggs, but once i assembled it, i realized i needed a little more, so i beat up another egg with another small splash of milk. you see? this is not rocket science nor brain surgery. thank god.)

while all this is happening, you should be cooking your noodles. i used one bag of yolk-free egg noodles, but again, judge by the size of your dish and the size of your crowd.

only boil them until they are half way done. this is less done than al dente. seriously. or else they’ll fall apart when you bake it.

mix veggies and noodles, and butter your baking dish well.

okay, you can’t really see the butter. just take my word for it that it’s there.

the next step is to add the noodles, veggies and egg mixture to the buttered dish, and sprinkle liberally with bread crumbs for a crunchy topping.

bake at 350 degrees until a knife stuck in the middle comes out almost clean, about 45 minutes.

yum, right?! mazel tov and happy hanukkah.

can’t get enough kugel? help yourself to more.

coconut curry squash soup

this is the kind of cooking i enjoy – snooping around blogs and cookbooks for cool-sounding recipes, then making them easier in my own way. i mean, in this case, thai curry and butternut squash soup sounds lovely, but who has thai red curry paste and kaffir lime leaves on hand?! certainly not me. and let me tell you, my safeway doesn’t sell them, either.

so we make do without.

i started by roasting a small butternut squash and a small acorn squash, because that’s what i had on hand (thanks, ekw!).

in a 400-degree oven until they are super soft.

when they are cool enough to handle, scoop out the insides.

then in a soup pot, i started cooking down half a small yellow onion, four cloves of minced garlic and about an inch and a half of minced fresh ginger root. honestly, i had it lying around. if you don’t, add a sprinkle of powdered ginger. i also added two teaspoons of regular curry powder, salt and pepper.

don’t let this brown, but cook until soft.

then i added 32 ounces of chicken stock, a can of coconut milk (surprisingly available at my safeway), all the squash mush and the juice of one lime.

since i don’t have an immersion blender nor a food processor large enough to handle this soup, i just simmered it for about 30 minutes and used the leek and potato soup method of squishing down any remaining large chunks of squash.

taste for salt and pepper and serve with plenty of rice and toasted coconut!

(if you have a toaster oven, that’s a good way to toast coconut, but since i don’t, a dry pan on the stove works fine, too.)