Rice Cooker Pasta

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Cori Rozentāle

I was feeling lazy the other day and didn’t feel like cooking. We’d been cooking up a storm with a bunch of experiments earlier in the week, so I wasn’t in the mood to cook. I did, however, want to try this recipe for pasta in a rice cooker that a friend of mine passed on.

She recommended that we use rice pasta because it can stand up to a lot of cooking without losing an al dente texture, so we picked up a little bag at Winco to try it. It turned out pretty well! The rice pasta has a definite texture all of its own and works well in long-cooked pasta dishes.

As usual, I can never leave well enough alone. I tweaked and played with it happily. I did manage to forget that I really abhor any kind of pepper in pasta sauce, so if you’re a fan, just add in part of a pepper. (I added half of a sweet pepper we picked up from our local farmer. Artis thought it was good but I hated it every time I took a bite with a bit of pepper mixed in.)

This came out extremely filling, particularly with a little salad on the side. I honestly thought that I’d want more but when I finished, I was pleasantly full.

Also, this makes for a great emergency meal when you’re too tired to cook, especially if you have jars of homemade pasta sauce laying around waiting to be used. If not, or if you don’t feel like making a sauce, just add about half a jar of your favorite store-bought sauce.

Rice Cooker Pasta [printable recipe]

Adapted from a recipe on Food.com
Serves 2

  • 1 1/2 cups brown rice pasta, uncooked
  • 1 1/2 cups hot water
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup TVP + 1/2 cup hot broth
  • 1/4 cup dried mushrooms
  • 3 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1 can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 generous splash of your favorite red wine
  • 1/4 cup shredded cheese or ricotta1
  • 1/2 tsp each oregano, basil, thyme
  • 1 tsp veggie or mushroom bouillon
  • salt and pepper
  • olive oil

Fry up onion, pepper and garlic in a skillet over medium heat until the edges are browned. Season with spices, salt and pepper. Deglaze with a splash of red wine. Add one can of crushed tomatoes. Heat until bubbly, then pour mixture into the pot of a rice cooker. Stir in pasta, cheese, TVP and mushrooms. Press Cook. When the cycle finishes, serve with a side salad, a bit of Parmesan cheese and garlic bread, if desired.

Notes:

  1. I didn’t have any ricotta on hand and I forgot to add in the shredded. I did, however, use nutritional yeast which can add a cheesy, buttery flavor. (This is one of my latest experimental foods.) Cheese would make this dish even better.
Posted in american, gluten-free, italian, one-dish, pasta, recipes, untranslated, vegan, vegetarian | Leave a comment

Simple, Fast Pizza Sauce

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Cori Rozentāle

Boy, I just finished one of the best pizzas we’ve ever made. Talk about good! I wish I could share a photo of this delectable beast of a pizza, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Here’s what we had: A homemade whole wheat rosemary pizza crust with a red wine tomato sauce, slices of fresh ghost eggplant from our garden lightly fried, fresh tomato slices from the farmer’s market, sauteed onions, bacon, fresh basil and slices of fresh mozzarella. Top that off with some sliced olives and there you have it. A damn good pizza.

Now, there’s about as many ways to make a pizza sauce as there are to make pizza. I usually do something different every time, tweaking this or fiddling with that, so this is a little snapshot of one of our sauces. Sure was good though and beats those canned pizza sauces handily.

A note on the ingredients, yes, I do use canned tomatoes here. Tomatoes were late this year coming into the season for the really good stuff, probably because of the weird cold spring we had. Canned tomatoes are reliably good year-round, having been canned when the tomatoes are ripe — and not that fake “ripe” they sell in stores. If you have beautiful garden-ripe tomatoes, use those, naturally.

Simple Fast Pizza Sauce [printable recipe]

  • 1 can diced tomatoes (about 2 cups fresh)
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1″ of anchovy paste or 2 anchovy fillets
  • 2 tbsp red wine
  • 1 1/2 tbsp dried onion flakes1 or 1/2 small yellow onion, diced
  • 1/2 tsp marjoram
  • 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tbsp olive oil

Saute fresh onion, if using, in olive oil in a saucepot over medium heat. When lightly browned, add garlic and cook an additional 30 seconds. Pour in tomatoes with their juices and add remaining ingredients. Stir well and reduce heat to a bare simmer. Let cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender or in a real blender before using.

Notes:

  1. I have dried onion flakes on-hand because they make great toppings for bagels and they can be easily added to doughs without upsetting the dry-liquid balance.
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Fried Wax Beans

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Cori Rozentāle

Fried Wax Beans

This is an incredibly simple dish that is tasty all out of proportion to its ingredients.

In short, this is a recipe that lives and dies by the quality of its ingredients.

We had found yellow and purple wax beans at the farmer’s market and I couldn’t resist. My husband had been wishing for yellow beans for some time, but you don’t often see green beans at the local store, much less yellow. I thought the purple ones were fantastically cool, so a few handfuls went in for a treat.

Turns out that purple wax beans turn green when you boil them. Damn.

Despite the unfortunate loss of color, these are so very good. Believe me, you’ll never want to so much as think about green beans in a can again after you’ve had these tasty morsels.

Fried Wax Beans [printable recipe]

  • 1/2 lb yellow wax beans, stems trimmed and cut into 1″ pieces
  • 1 – 2 tbsp butter
  • 2 – 3 cloves garlic, minced or 1 tsp dried minced garlic
  • salt, pepper

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add beans. Cook for 10 minutes or until nice and tender, then strain.

In a saute pan, melt butter over medium heat and add strained beans, a pinch of salt and some freshly ground pepper. Fry, tossing frequently, until the beans begin to color. Add garlic and stir. Continue to cook until the beans are darkly golden and the garlic is nicely browned.

Posted in american, latvian, recipes, side, untranslated, vegetable, vegetarian | Leave a comment

Cauliflower Gratin

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Cori Rozentāle

Cauliflower Gratin

We had a head of cauliflower that we wanted to turn into a gratin. Originally, we had it all planned out, then promptly failed to write it down and forgot everything. Whoops.

So, I went looking for a gratin recipe to try. It seemed that most of the recipes I came across fell into one of two camps – either based on Ina Garten’s recipe and essentially a mac’n'cheese with cauliflower or based on Thomas Keller’s recipe as given in his book, Bouchon.

I’m not a fan of mac’n'cheese, nor of alfredo or bechamel. The only time I make bechamel is when I’m making stuffed, baked pasta and even then, I mix it with a red sauce. Plus, I just didn’t want that much butter.

Keller’s recipe, though more involved, was much more appealing. When I made it, however, it didn’t seem very involved. It may have a lot of steps, but they’re all pretty easy. So don’t let the length of the recipe fool you, okay?

I had to make some substitutions, which isn’t surprising, and I altered some of the quantities to suit what I had. It came out wonderfully all the same.

I’m really happy I decided on this one because it turned out so deliciously good. I’m really looking forward to doing it again when I have some horseradish on-hand because it’d be even better.

Cauliflower Gratin [printable recipe]

Adapted from Thomas Keller’s recipe in Bouchon

  • 1 head cauliflower
  • 1 tsp white wine or cider vinegar
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 small yellow onion
  • 3 – 4 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 tsp thyme
  • 1/2 tsp dried parsley flakes1
  • 1 cup half-n-half
  • 1/4 tsp crushed red chile flakes or 1/2 tsp horseradish2
  • 1/8 tsp curry powder
  • 1/3 cup grated cheese3
  • 2 tbsp fine bread crumbs, or so
  • 2/3 cup water
  • salt and pepper

Preparing the cauliflower
Remove the leaves from the base of the stem and cut out the core. Chop the florets into bite-size pieces and remove the stems, placing them in a small bowl. Cut away the tough exterior of the core as necessary, then chop it into chunks and combine with the stems. Process the stem and core pieces in a food processor until finely minced (but not pureed!). You should have between 1 and 2 cups, if not, chop up some florets.

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add salt and vinegar4. Blanch the florets for 2 minutes, then strain and place in an 8×8 casserole dish. Sprinkle with salt to taste.

Preparing the sauce
In the pot or a large saucepan, melt butter until foamy. Add onions and garlic, cook until translucent. Season with salt, pepper, thyme, parsley, curry powder and chili flakes (if using horseradish, don’t add it). Add the minced cauliflower core bits and water, then simmer for 5 to 6 minutes. Most of the water should evaporate and the cauliflower will be tender.

Stir in the half-n-half and simmer for another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. If using horseradish, add it now. Pour the mixture into a blender and puree until smooth. Taste and add salt if necessary.

Preparing the gratin
Pour the pureed sauce over the cauliflower florets evenly. It should come about halfway up the side of the dish.

If you want, you can stop here and refrigerate this for up to an entire day. The flavors will blend together and it will be even better. Just don’t put the cold dish into a hot oven – let it come up to room temperature first.

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Sprinkle the gratin with bread crumbs and cheese. Bake for 15 minutes. Test the center (if you chilled it) with a metal skewer or a butter knife – if you touch the tip to your lip or tongue, it should feel hot.

Finally, broil for 2 minutes to evenly brown the top. Serve.

Notes:

  1. If you have fresh thyme and/or parsley, you should use that. Keller says to put in the sprigs whole, then remove it – it helps preserve the whiteness of the dish. Since I had only dried in the cupboard, I didn’t worry about it.
  2. Horseradish would have been soooooo good. But chile flakes worked too.
  3. He called for Comte or Emmenthaler, I used Italian blend from a bag. Boy, let’s hope he doesn’t find out! Could you imagine Keller ever using cheese in a bag? No, I didn’t think so. I don’t get paid the big bucks so it’s cheese in a bag for us.
  4. Did you know that adding vinegar helps preserve the color of the cauliflower? It also helps preserve the structure of boiling potatoes – a great thing if you’re intending to fry them up later. Science is neat!
Posted in american, recipes, side, untranslated, vegetable, vegetarian | Leave a comment

A Simple Pesto

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Cori Rozentāle

One of the best things about the local farmer’s market is being able to get baggies of fresh basil cheaply and easily. And the best thing about big bags of basil is PESTO!

There are so many ways to make pesto, many of which don’t even call for basil but for some other green, leafy thing. Spinach, parsley, you name it. Some with nuts, some with cheese, some with both.

So, this is only one simple way to make pesto and the high quantity of nuts and tomato make this a fairly dull-looking sauce. I have to say though, it’s definitely tasty.

I like to make a concentrated paste that’s easy to store then mix it up with enough water to thin it to my desired consistency. Pasta water works great because of its high starch content.

Tomato-Basil Pesto [printable recipe]

  • 1 heaping cup of fresh basil, stems removed
  • 4 sun-dried tomatoes
  • 3 – 4 cloves garlic
  • 1/4 cup walnuts
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 ounce Parmesan or Asiago
  • 1/4 cup water
  • salt and pepper

Combine everything in the bowl of a food processor. Process until a thick paste forms, adding just enough water to enable the processor to efficiently work. Store in the fridge until needed.

To use: Mix with sufficient water to make a sauce to your taste.

Posted in american, italian, one-dish, pasta, recipes, sauce, untranslated, vegetarian | Leave a comment