Archive for the 'one dish' Category
I spent most of today testing pumpkin recipes. Not a bad job, really, but one of the of the oddities of being a food writer is lead time - I’m often trying to find mincemeat in July for a Christmas article (not complaining) or trying to get into the Halloween groove on the August long weekend. Today’s pumpkin article had me making pumpkin gingerbread with blueberries (OK, really Saskatoons plucked from the bush down the street), pumpkin hermits and pumpkin butter. Yes, like apple butter, but far easier to make (you start with a can of pumpkin puree, instead of cooking an entire tree’s worth of apples down to a cup or so) and nutritionally superior on account of all that beta carotene. I had heard of the stuff, and when I went looking I wasn’t surprised to find some on one of my favourite blogs.
OK, here it is. (Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from AllRecipes.)
Pumpkin Butter
Heard of apple butter? It can be made out of pumpkin – and canned pumpkin puree makes it easy. If you prefer, start with a fresh pumpkin, dice it, simmer it in the apple juice until tender and mash it well, then add the remaining ingredients and cook it down until it’s thick and jamlike. You can jar this as you might other jams, but it freezes exceptionally well too. It’s great on toast and works in any recipe that calls for apple butter.
1 – 28 oz. (798 mL) can pumpkin puree
1 ¼ cups packed brown sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened apple juice (or a juice box)
1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp. finely grated fresh ginger
1 Tbsp. dark molasses
¼ tsp. ground allspice or cloves
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Put everything except the lemon juice into a medium pot and set it over medium heat. Stir until it is well blended and bring to a boil; as soon as the thick mixture bubbles turn the heat down to low and cook, stirring occasionally, for about an hour, until very thick and smooth.
Makes about 4 cups.
So by dinnertime I had picked at warm baking and licked my fingers so many times I didn’t feel like eating but felt the need for a proper dinner that included plenty of vegetables. I had a green and yellow zucchini going quickly south and a beautiful bunch of purple onions from the market - I wanted to grill them and the zucchini and some shrimp, and thought maybe I’d toss them warm with pasta and feta, but since I really wanted to add red peppers to the mix and all I had were diced and frozen, I chopped everything up and broiled it on a baking sheet instead. Someone had given me a bottle of basil-infused olive oil, which I used to toss the veg with on the baking sheet before roasting - something I quickly regretted when it released a hefty waft of licorice. Blech.
So I roasted the veg - purple onion, green and yellow zucchini, whole cloves of garlic and red pepper - with some oil, salt and pepper until they were well-browned and crispy (all of these veg are relatively soft, so none needed any lead time) and then scraped the lot off the sheet into some freshly cooked pasta (radiatorre in this case, which is similar to rotini - the last of the box I wanted to get rid of, and what I was making for W to eat with his meatballs as it’s easy to stab with a fork) and crumbled in some feta. It could have been enough as is with the garlicky oil from the veg, but I glugged over some balsamic vinaigrette too, turning it into sort of a cross between a warm pasta salad and a warm pasta dish. Everything could have been cooled - the roasted veg cooled to room temp and the pasta run under cold water - to make a similar cold pasta salad with balsamic vinaigrette. Either would go with grilled chicken or shrimp.
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August 01 2008 | one dish and pasta and preserves and vegetarian | 4 Comments »
OK, what we really had for dinner was the last pickings of bison rotini, but I already told you about that. And W ate most of it, because we were still full from lunch; A came over and we sat out in folding chairs in the yard and drank cold pink fizzy wine and ate pad Thai, and that’s far more interesting.
I had promised to make it, and then when I went to soak my rice noodles I discovered I didn’t have any. I suppose my mission to deplete a seemingly bottomless stash of assorted pasta and noodles has been successful. We had fresh Asian noodles though, so I figured that was close enough.
Pad Thai is fast (if you get everything ready to go before you start), and a perfect way to use up leftover roasted chicken, tofu, or even pork, and if you keep a bag of shrimp in the freezer it’s easy to add a handful to dishes such as this. Tamarind concentrate and chili sauce can be found in the ethnic foods section of grocery stores or in Asian markets, and although not necessary are well worth seeking out - both will keep in the fridge for a long time, so don’t worry about buying a whole jar just to use a few spoonfuls.
Pad Thai
1/2 – 1 lb. (250-500 g) package rice noodles, thin or thick
Sesame, peanut or canola oil, for cooking
1/4 cup tomato sauce or ketchup
1/4 cup fish sauce (nam pla)
1/4 cup lime juice or 2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2-4 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. chili sauce or sambal oelek (optional)
1 tsp. tamarind concentrate (optional)
1 cup chopped cooked chicken (optional)
1/2 lb. cooked or uncooked shrimp, shelled and deveined (optional)
1 pkg. firm tofu, drained and diced (optional)
1-3 small red chilies (optional)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cloves garlic, crushed (optional)
3 green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups bean sprouts
1/4 cup chopped peanuts or cashews, salted or unsalted
Lime wedges (optional)
Soak the rice noodles according to the package directions. Rinse them with cold water and drain well. Drizzle the noodles with a little oil to keep them from sticking, and toss to coat.
In a small bowl, stir together the tomato sauce, fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, chili sauce, and tamarind concentrate (if using).
Heat a good drizzle of oil in a large nonstick skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the meat or shrimp if they’re uncooked (if your meat is cooked, set it aside for now), along with the tofu and the chilies if you’re using them. Cook for a few minutes, until the meat is cooked through or the tofu is golden. Push the mixture aside or remove it from the pan. If you are using shrimp, remove them from the pan so that they don’t overcook and become tough. Add the eggs and cook them as if you were making scrambled eggs, breaking them up with a spatula. Push them aside.
Add a little more oil if you need it and stir fry the garlic and green onions for about a minute. Add the noodles and cook, tossing them with tongs, for another minute. Return any reserved cooked meat to the pan, pour as much of the sauce as you want over it all, and cook for 2-3 minutes, tossing the mixture with tongs or a spatula to coat everything with sauce and heat it through. Add the bean sprouts at the very end as you toss everything together.
Serve immediately in large shallow bowls. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts and serve with lime wedges to squeeze over top. Serves 4.
Yesterday we finished off Vij’s chicken curry and rice, but still had rice left over. When this happens and I’m not in the mood to make fried rice, I pour milk over it and bring it to a simmer with a bit of honey; the rice soaks up the milk and the starch thickens it and eventually I have a simple rice pudding. I was about to add some raw short grain rice to the pot, thinking that it could then be called risotto - so much fancier-sounding than rice pudding - and the thought reminded me of the barley risotto I made with mushrooms. Why not add some barley and make a rice and barley pudding? Which would sort of be a risotto? Hey wait, isn’t there a barley cereal with cream on the menu at Diner Deluxe? And isn’t it fabulous?
So I dumped, without measuring, some barley into the pot. Probably about half a cup, and then poured enough milk over to generously cover it. Rice puddings are easy to make this way - just cook until it soaks up the milk, add more, and so on. Sweeten with a little sugar, honey or maple syrup, and once it’s as thick as you want it to be, stir in a splash of vanilla.
The compote was my first jab at using up some of this rhubarb. A few stalks, chopped into a pot with a couple handfuls of strawberries, about a half cup of sugar (or to suit your taste) and a spoonful of orange juice concentrate straight from the freezer. Bring to a simmer and cook until it breaks down and resembles a sort of runny jam that isn’t as janny-sweet as jam, but stands in for it just as well on bagels and toast, making either reminiscent of strawberry-rhubarb pie.
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July 23 2008 | one dish and seafood and sweet stuff and vegetarian | No Comments »
I realize there was nothing about today that called for baked pasta. It was 30 degrees outside by 10 am, and is still so hot I have to intermittently go outside and stand in W’s kiddie pool to cool off. But yesterday when an avalanche from the freezer almost crushed Lou it became apparent that we needed to free up some space. Even our ice cube trays were displaced, and today ice could have come in handy. So the first thing that I took out (or rather kind of fell out) was a ziplock baggie of bison and blueberries that I had cooked up before we went away. I thawed it, stirred in the last of the canned diced tomatoes from Vij’s curry, some tomato sauce sauce and boiled some whole wheat rotini. The usual Willem Chow. But then it got cold and he didn’t eat it, and I had gone and made way too much, so I left it all in the skillet, sprinkled it with some cheese and baked it just long enough to rewarm the innards and melt the cheese. I had to turn it on to bake a Key lime pie for tomorrow morning anyway, so at least we got dinner out of it.
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July 21 2008 | bison and freezable and one dish and pasta | 2 Comments »
Last on the must-go refrigerator blowout list: a few slices of bacon, carrots and celery, and half a jar of tomato bruschetta. I like recipes that use meat as a condiment more than the main event to orchestrate sides around; a few slices will go a long way to season a big bowl of veg; a single crumbled Italian or chorizo or even chicken sausage would do the trick too.
When I saved this photo, I titled it “Bean Thing”; I can’t call it a soup (although it has the potential to be), nor rightly a stew, but it’s a chunky meal-in-a-bowl that has nice soppable juices for a grainy bun and will help you meet your daily vegetable quota.
I’ve made this before with canned tomatoes, but not wanting to open a can when there are fresh tomatoes and tomato products to be used up I chopped up two small fresh tomatoes and added half a jar of tomato-garlic bruschetta.
The best part of dinner was the snack I ate while making it: a spinach salad (quelle surprise) that was really just spinach leaves with the cold goat cheese gratin crumbled over it, and the rest of the balsamic vinaigrette. I had to sit down, it was so good.
White Beans with Tomatoes, Spinach and Pancetta
3-4 slices pancetta or bacon, chopped, or a sausage squeezed out of its casing
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 14 oz. (398 mL) can white kidney or navy beans, rinsed and drained
1 14 oz. (398 mL) can diced tomatoes or a chopped tomato or two and a glug of bruschetta or salsa
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth or water
a big handful or two of chopped or torn fresh spinach, chard or kale
Salt and pepper
In a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat, sauté the bacon, onion, carrots, celery and garlic for about 10 minutes, until the carrots are tender and you’re starting to get some caramelized bits.
Add the beans, tomatoes with their juices and chicken broth. Bring the mixture to a simmer, cover and cook for about 20 minutes. Add the spinach, chard or kale and cook until it wilts, then leave the lid off and cook it until it’s as thick as you like. Season with salt and pepper and serve it while it’s hot.
Serves 4.
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July 07 2008 | beans and one dish | No Comments »
In keeping with our theme of the week - Using Stuff Up and Spinach - tonight’s dinner was a spinach salad made with greens plucked straight from A’s garden and still warm from the sun, with crumbled bacon and the heel of a light rye cut into chunks and rolled around the drained bacon pan (just to gather that delicious bacon residue) and toasted. Rather than do the usual boiled sliced egg, I topped each one with a poached egg, so that when the yolks broke they oozed all over the leaves and croutons and mingled with the salad dressing - a vinaigrette made with equal parts canola oil, red wine vinegar and a squirt of grainy Dijon. (I would have loved some mushrooms and/or slivered purple onion in it, too, but would have required me to break my no-buy rule.)
Dessert was a round of mini donuts at the Stampede grounds!
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July 05 2008 | one dish and salads | 3 Comments »
I was in the middle of feeling guilty about making another fridge-cleaning frittata (it’s the best way I know of to use up desperate vegetables and bits of cheese) when I was inspired by the last two wedges of caramelized onion pan bread, which I sent to the wading pool with M and W and which later came back in a knapsack full of wet towels.
It occurred to me that I could cube or crumble it into the pan of asparagus, red peppers and spinach I had just finished sauteeing, before pouring over the beaten egg. At first it seemed weird, but then it occurred to me that it would turn it into a sort of strata, the soft sconelike bread instantly sopping up the egg without needing an overnight soak like regular strata does.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, strata is an egg casserole wherein you pour eggs beaten with milk over stale cubed bread and any combo of meat, veg and/or cheese, and refrigerate it overnight so that the bread absorbs much of the egg, then you bake it. In this case I cooked up my veg, then spread over the diced bread, poured over 2 eggs and 3 egg whites, beaten with a little milk, salt and pepper, and grated the very last teeny triangle of Parmesan over top.
So there you go. A meal in one dish, and I have once again demonstrated my frugality. Or at least my irritation at the thought of wasting perfectly good food.
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July 04 2008 | eggs and one dish | 2 Comments »
I’m doing some preemptive damage control before Stampede starts tomorrow.
Also, it has been a long and particularly stressful two days, and I hadn’t even considered dinner until we realized it was 4pm and we hadn’t even eaten lunch.
As I mentioned yesterday, it’s clean-out-the-fridge week. This, happily, coincides with my dogsitting duties, which includes the fringe benefit of a gardenful of fresh spinach that if not plucked, will go to seed. So the challenge for this week: Using Up Stuff with Fresh Spinach.
As I may have mentioned before, I love grainy salads, and particularly lentils and barley together. The combination makes a complete protein, and is substantial enough for a whole meal-in-a-bowl. The best part is that they cook for the exact same amount of time, so you can bring a pot of water to a boil and throw in a handful of dried lentils and a handful of barley (this would also be ideal for an Extremely Frugal-themed week) and boil them for 40 minutes, then drain in a colander, run cold water over them and you’re good to go. Bonus: you can freeze them at this point, which is what I did with the barley and lentils I used tonight. Just run them under warm water in a colander to thaw, or throw them directly into soup. Canned lentils, rinsed and drained, work just as well, but you’ll still have to cook the barley. Or try brown rice.
The great thing about salads is that you really don’t have to use a specific list of ingredients, or adhere to any measurements. I wished I had a tomato or better yet, some grape tomatoes, but I didn’t, so red pepper worked out fine. (Still, I wished it was roasted.) Any sort of balsamic vinaigrette works in place of the dressing.
Lentil & Barley Salad
1/2 cup dry green lentils
1/2 cup pot or pearl barley
1 garlic clove, peeled (optional)
1 tomato or a handful of grape tomatoes, chopped or halved
a big handful of fresh spinach or Italian parsley, chopped
as much crumbled feta as you like
some finely chopped purple onion or a chopped green onion
freshly ground black pepper
Dressing:
equal parts olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar (or some of each)
1 clove of garlic, finely squished
Toss everything together and chill for a few hours to give the flavors time to get to know each other.
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July 03 2008 | beans and grains and one dish and salads and vegetarian | 3 Comments »
Dinner was lunch today, as I ate before heading to CBC and then went more or less straight to Julliard to celebrate my brother in law’s graduation, where we had drinks and snacks and cake, not really dinner per se, so again I’m falling back on what was technically my last meal of the day. It was hot enough this afternoon to turn my baggie of chocolate covered pretzels into a bag of pretzels in chocolate sauce in the car, so there was no actual cooking. Fortunately I just came up with this new salad - a cross between pan bagnat (pan ban-YAH) - a sandwich from the south of France made with tuna, olives, tomatoes and hard boiled eggs - and a panzanella salad, which is based on torn up chunks of bread, rather than lettuce, potatoes or other vegetables or grains. The bread soaks up the dressing, and creates a more substantial base; it’s kind of like tearing up your sandwich into chunks and eating it with a fork.
If you want to drizzle the torn bread chunks with oil and toast them they will turn out more like croutons; Jamie Oliver has a similar salad onto which he sets a softly poached egg, whose yolk then dribbles over the greens and mingles with the lemony dressing. That’s definitely on my to-eat list for next week.
Pan Bagnat Panzanella (Salad)
1/2 loaf crusty bread or baguette, cut or torn into chunks
1 ripe tomato, chopped
1/2 purple onion, chopped
1 can tuna in oil, drained
1 hard-boiled egg, peeled and chopped
a handful of torn fresh basil or Italian parsley
1/2 cup Kalamata olives
Parmesano-Reggiano
a couple spoonfuls of capers, drained
Dressing:
1/2 cup canola or olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
lots of pepper
Make a salad using chunks of bread, chopped tomato, onion, flaked tuna, egg, basil or parsley and olives. Using a vegetable peeler, peel strips of Parmesano-Reggiano cheese over top, and sprinkle with capers. Toss with dressing and serve immediately.
Serves 2-4.
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June 20 2008 | one dish and salads | 1 Comment »
Yes, I know, I am an extraordinarily boring person this week. Sorry about that. Sorry too for the hideously blue bowl I decided in haste to dish my boring chili up in, not even thinking (after 170 days) that I would be required to take a photo of it. I’m particularly proud of my buttered sliced bread garnish - it reminds me of dinnertime images of the 50s when they’d put out a section of Wonder Bread slices in a serving bowl on the kitchen table. (This is not Wonder Bread. It is grocery store sliced bread, but at least it’s whole wheat. Honest. When I see Wonder Bread I can’t not think about Clarissa Dickson Wright’s reference to “slimy white slice”.) Tomorrow promises to get more interesting, as I’m cooking for my Dad’s birthday on Saturday and Ramsay Rocks on Sunday, an event I’m emceeing (and cooking for the volunteers - there will be plenty of food for everyone else though). You should come.
I do have a confession to make: I love anything tomato-saucy with buttered bread. I have been known to make a spaghetti sandwich, just to create a vehicle for the tomato sauce. Sometimes I just scoop up chunky tomato sauce leftovers with bread. W tried to mimic me tonight and made quite a mess of the patio. Lou was happy though. (I mean John Cusack.)
Again, chili isn’t even particularly summery. But it is cowboyish, and Stampede is coming up faster than I care to acknowledge. When I was 12, I won the Calgary Stampede Chili Cook-off. (The adult one, not a special cook-off for kids; let me tell you, there were some mighty unhappy contestants who took their chili very seriously and were not at all pleased to be whupped by a 12 year old girl who sort of threw a bit of this and that in the pot and then didn’t even particularly remember her recipe.) This year, I’m hosting the second annual kids’ chili cook-off at the Stampede on Kids’ Day. We don’t have enough contestants yet, so if you have kids under 14 who are interested in entering their chili - the winner then gets to make their recipe on the ATCO cooking stage and be on TV, if they want to - email me!
I have never used a recipe for chili. There is no reason to. I cook up some lean ground beef or bison with a chopped onion, maybe a red pepper, in a drizzle of canola oil, then add a couple cans of beans, drained to get rid of the salty bean sludge (I like things beany - red kidney beans for sure, sometimes baked beans in tomato sauce, sometimes white kidney or black beans) a big can or two of diced tomatoes (whole is fine too), and about a cup of salsa if I have some. A good heaping tablespoon or so of chili powder - which is really high in fiber, being simply ground up dried chiles - and sometimes a small spoonful of cocoa and/or instant coffee or espresso, just to give it some depth and colour. Coffee is the cowboy way, after all. Decaf works just as well. Simmer it all for about an hour to break down the tomatoes. That’s pretty much it. If you want to add a can of tomato paste, that’s always a good idea - tomato paste is such a great source of lypocene - much higher than fresh tomatoes, as they have been cooked down and condensed. Tomato paste is also great as pizza sauce. It’s nice and thick, and quite sweet tasting, being just pure tomatoes. Kids love it.
The biggest flavour factor when it comes to chili is time - I always let it sit in the fridge for a day or two before we eat it. It’s edible of course the day you make it, but always better after a day or so. It also freezes very well.
For some reason, yesterday’s spaghetti and today’s chili tasted fantastic. No thanks to any particularly stellar culinary skills, but more likely due to the fact that I spent a good 4 hours completely secluded from anything edible in the CBC newsroom beforehand. They are really onto something with this concept of bon appetit.
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June 19 2008 | beans and bison and freezable and one dish | 6 Comments »
If this wet, grey, hail-y weather continues, we are in for a whole year’s worth of cold weather comfort food. The smell of this shepherd’s pie bubbling made me crave crunchy leaves and Halloween.
To be honest shepherd’s pie isn’t normally in my repertoire, but as I was pondering what to do with this leftover roast lamb (hash was my first thought… my mom used to make the crispiest hash with leftover roast beef, potatoes and onions - like a wedge of burger and fries all crisped up and smothered in ketchup) I was simultaneously working on an article on meals you can freeze ahead. Shepherd’s pie is traditionally made with lamb, and I saw it as another opportunity to chip away at my stash of sweet potatoes while making it healthier in the process. Typically SP is made with raw ground meat, but it can just as easily be done with finely chopped leftover roast. Honestly, you could make a shepherd’s pie out of anything - a panful of veggies, even, or robust mushrooms with onions and garlic - then sprinkle a spoonful of flour overtop and add a cup of stock; bring it to a simmer to thicken and scrape up the browned bits from the pan, and pour into a baking dish and top with mashed potatoes. You really don’t need a recipe here, just a basic formula.
Come to think of it - a vegetarian version made with meaty portobello mushrooms, onions and garlic, and Guinness in place of the stock, would be just fab. More appropriate in October though, I think. Under normal circumstances, anyway.
Shepherd’s Pie with Sweet Potatoes
2 largeish sweet potatoes or 3 largeish russet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
a drizzle of canola or olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 lb. ground lamb, lean beef or bison (or 2-3 cups chopped leftover roast)
1 cup sliced mushrooms (optional)
1 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. chopped fresh or dry rosemary (optional)
1 cup beef, veggie, onion or chicken broth
2 Tbsp. tomato paste or ketchup
1 cup frozen peas
2 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup(ish) milk
salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 375°F. To cook the potatoes you can either roast them in their skins in the oven for about an hour, microwave them whole in their skins (poke them with a fork first) or peel, chop and boil them until soft.
In a large pan, heat a drizzle of oil and sauté the onion and carrot over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until soft; add the garlic and meat and cook for another 5 minutes, until the meat is cooked through and the veg are starting to brown a little.
If you want to add mushrooms, set the meat mixture aside (transfer it to a bowl or something), heat a little more oil and sauté the mushrooms until they release their moisture and then the moisture cooks off and they start to brown. Return the meat mixture to the pan. Sprinkle the flour overtop and stir it around until it coats the meat a little, then add the rosemary, stock and tomato paste and stir until the mixture bubbles and thickens, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Stir in the peas.
Pour into a baking dish, making sure it only fills it half full, so there is room for the potatoes.
Peel (if necessary) and mash the potatoes with the butter, milk and salt and pepper. Spread over the meat mixture and bake for about 45 minutes, until bubbly.
Serves 6.
Per serving: 270 calories, 9.6 g total fat (2.8 g saturated fat, 4.4 g monounsaturated fat, 1 g polyunsaturated fat), 27.8 g protein, 17.9 g carbohydrate, 74.8 mg cholesterol, 2.5 g fiber. 32% calories from fat.
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June 11 2008 | freezable and lamb and leftovers and one dish | 2 Comments »
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