Archive for the 'pasta' Category
We’ve been in getting-outta-Dodge mode for the past few days. Sadly, the car hasn’t – it’s in the shop with a pooched clutch. And so while we pine by the phone for the (completely awesome) mechanics to call and let us know we’re free to go get the H. out of this snow, I’ve been diligently plowing through the perishables in the fridge. There were lots of bits of cheese, and this not eating wheat thing combined with neverending snow has been causing me to Jones for starchy things big time. Like a big ol’ pot of baked mac & cheese.
Also – Pat from Winnipeg was kind enough to email me with some wheat-free pasta advice, suggesting Mrs. Leeper’s corn pasta (she has no affiliation), which I promptly went out and bought a bag of.
A lot of you have been emailing and tweeting wheat-free advice – thanks! – and some have been asking why the h. I would want to do such a thing. I tend to agree. I’ll spare you the details of my symptoms, besides the brain fog, which my dad is convinced has more to do with lack of sleep than my morning bagel, but it’s just to see if I react when I do eat some. And to wean myself off, because whether it’s bread and baked goods or sugar or fat, the more I eat the more I want. The less you feed your cravings the weaker they get. And cravings, I think, are more difficult to resist than hunger.
Yes, it’s harder than I thought. It has made me more conscious of what I eat, and the fog has cleared somewhat, although I didn’t get the boost of energy I thought I would. (On days when I’ve been subsisting on bread I tend to feel like I’m tied to a piano.) And the foggy brain part can’t be all gone, because the other day I tried to put W’s jacket on while he insisted that HE DIDN’T HAVE A SHIRT ON YET. I’m not doing it in an attempt to lose weight, although I admit I did allow myself to get my hopes up a teeny bit, having heard from a bazillion or so people over the years that when you give up wheat, you drop pounds like crazy! Like that! (Finger snap!) And I figured that just by default of having NOT PICKED AT ANY (any!) of the delicious crumbs on our blueberry big crumb cake we made at class last Wednesday, nor any of the three (THREE!) batches of warm scones with cheese, olives, berries (not all together) – nor anything (freshly baked Raincoast Crisps topped with shaved Asiago! Freshly made samosas, using Naheed’s mom’s recipe!) at my Saturday class, or waffles Sunday morning, or pulled pork on soft brioche rolls for dinner, that it might count for something.
And so the other day I went to the gym after work, and hopped on the right and proper medical scale, and wow, check it out!! I GAINED SIX POUNDS. Awesome.
My plan is to stick it out a little longer for scientific purposes, make sure my gut is no longer used to massive influxes of it and then have a crispy cod club whenever we manage to make it to Tofino, and see how strongly it protests. Mwaa haa haa. I’m really hoping nothing happens and I can just go back to having a bagel already.
But back to the pasta. I’ve been eating my share of rice and oats and granola, but still craving something to fill that void that bread left when I sent it packing. While it is a pretty shade of corn yellow, I might not have been able to detect that it wasn’t wheat had I not bought it myself. It’s a little lighter (really! I assumed corn pasta might be a bit heavier, like corn bread) and softer than wheat macaroni, without being mushy. It’s like it was made for mac & cheese.
As I’ve been channeling my inner gluten-free girl, I deferred to her mac & cheese expertise. I’ve always made it the same way – with pasta and a cheese sauce started with a roux – rice flour is a perfectly effective thickener, but she had a version made with cottage cheese, and I had ricotta in the fridge. So I added the container to the drained pasta in the pot, along with shredded bits of Parmesan, cheddars and gruyere, mixed it up, then topped it with two slices of grainy bread blitzed with a bit more Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.
(Yes – it was regular wheat bread – you could use gluten-free bread of course. Instead, after baking (at 350F until bubbly) I opted to carefully dissect mine, scooping gingerly from the bottom of the pot and avoiding the crumbs. Yum.)
It’s well after dinnertime now. Sounds like they didn’t finish the car again. Boo. Maybe tomorrow.
March 23 2011 | pasta | 28 Comments »
9 out of 10 firemen can’t be wrong.
So Friday morning, you may have heard, I did a cooking segment on BT at the new Le Creuset store in Chinook (yes, I’m working on free stuff here! there are channels to go through!) WITH the firemen from the 2011 Hot Stuff calendar. Yes, my job does not suck at all some days. Although it must be said that Jill had a little more firefigher attention than I did. Possibly a lot.
We cooked with beef – ground sirloin, which comes from a single cut (sirloin) rather than a bunch (which you typically get with ground beef), which I like the idea of, plus you get the taste of a steak in ground form. Bonus: ground sirloin has about the same amount of fat as the extra-lean ground beef you’ll get at the grocery store, but with far better flavour and texture. Our theme was cooking with beef and beefcakes, surrounded by Le Creuset. Forget whiskers on kittens – these are a few of my favourite things. The coffee at Phil & Sebastian right next door completed me.
We made shepherd’s pies, a beefy Moroccan dish with olives and couscous, and these stuffed shells.
(Or rather they made them, under my -loose- direction.) They had it covered. They did a little improv. When the second wave of firemen arrived to eat, the consensus was the stuffed shells were their favourite. They’re like little two-bite lasagnas, filled with beef, spinach and ricotta and topped with melty cheese. How could you not adore them? I must admit I’ve always wondered who buys giant pasta shells to stuff – but despite their slipperiness and the fact that several tore or broke and were nibbled on by W or fed to the dog, I’ll be making them again. It was quick – I cooked up the beef, onion and garlic while boiling the shells, added it to some ricotta and spinach (the second time I added a spoonful of pesto, too), spooned the mixture into the shells (kids love getting in on this part, and it wasn’t at all finicky), poured sauce over, sprinkled with cheese and baked until bubbly. Easy. They freeze well (before baking), so you can make a big batch, divide it between two baking dishes, eat one right away and freeze the other for another night. Bake it straight from frozen.
Here’s the recipe – it’s very adaptable though – we didn’t measure particularly closely.
Florentine Beef & Cheese-Stuffed Shells
The best part about this gussied-up twist on lasagna is that it makes two pans – that means you can stash one away for a no-effort dinner another night. If you have kids around, small hands are particularly adept at stuffing pasta shells. Recipe courtesy of beefinfo.org.
1 box (340 g) jumbo pasta shells (approx. 44 shells)
1 lb (500 g) lean or extra lean ground beef sirloin
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2-3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. (5 mL) Italian seasoning
1 pkg. (454 g) light ricotta cheese
1 pkg. (300 g) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper
4 cups (1 L) pasta sauce
1/4 cup (50 mL) grated Parmesan cheese
Cook pasta shells according to package directions. Drain and set aside. (Don’t worry if some shells tear – you won’t need them all.)
Meanwhile, cook the beef, onion, garlic and Italian seasoning in large, deep skillet set over medium heat until the beef is thoroughly cooked and any liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat. Stir in the ricotta, spinach, 1 cup of the mozzarella and pepper. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the filling into each of about 32 shells.
Spread about a cup of the pasta sauce into each of 9×13-inch baking dish and a 9-inch glass pie plate (or similar sized baking dishes). Place 20 filled shells in the larger baking dish, and 10 to 12 in the pie plate. Drizzle the remaining pasta sauce over the shells, sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan. (At this point the dish can be covered and refrigerated overnight or frozen for up to 4 months). Cover loosely with foil and bake in 350°F oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 5 minutes, until bubbly around the edges and golden on top.
Makes 10 servings.
February 16 2011 | beef and freezable and pasta | 16 Comments »
I’ve been a bit preoccupied with the thought of gnocchi lately. Maybe because they remind me of teeny little pillows. Maybe because they’re perfect little chubby carbohydrate dumplings I want to curl up on the couch and hibernate with. Maybe because they are so closely associated with browned butter. Probably all of the above.
I’ve made gnocchi, and ordered it at restaurants, but never bought it at the grocery store – this was a total impulse buy. It was fine – like plain pasta that needed some dressing up. In this case I resurrected some mushrooms, sauteing them with butter and garlic after doing the same to a diced sweet potato. I had seen this, but mine was far, far more streamlined.
It would be a waste to write out a recipe, not that I’d remember it anyway. Heavy cast iron skillet, canola oil and butter, diced sweet potato, then mushrooms and garlic. Boiled gnocchi tossed with all of the above, plus a glob of butter left to melt, then turn golden and nutty in the pan with the browned bits in the bottom. Easy to stab at with a fork at my desk on nights when it’s already dark by 4 o’clock.
December 13 2010 | pasta and vegetarian | 9 Comments »
I think I may have found my new favourite end-of-a-long-day-don’t-feel-like-cooking-but-very-much-feel-like-eating comfort food sort of dinner. It’s easier to make than reheating a jar of spaghetti sauce. And probably costs in the vicinity of a buck. Which means more for the coffee fund.
And we have peas. Lots of them. Mike and W shelled them on the living room floor, with Lou catching the strays. I wanted to use them as more than green filler for our dinner plates – to show them off a little more – and I remembered a Jamie Oliver recipe for cheesy peas.
Just the sort of recipe I tend to look at, mentally nod and move on, because I know the gist of it already. Peas, butter, lemon and cheese. I could do that, easy. But do I ever? No.
It seemed like a good pairing for pasta, and I’m a fan of tossing peas into pasta water for the last cooking minutes and draining – it’s like dinner multitasking. So I morphed the two, taking his advice to scoop out some of the starchy water before draining it, then tossed the noodles (linguine, but it could be anything) with a splash of it, butter, juice of a lemon and grated Parm. Lots of pepper. Divine. I wish I had another bowl of it in bed.
Pasta with Jamie’s Cheesy Peas
Really, don’t even worry about the measurements. Make as much pasta and peas as you like, and dress them up with butter, lemon and cheese, adding enough pasta water to make a sauce.
enough pasta for 3-4
4 big handfuls of fresh or frozen peas
a knob of butter
lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
a squeeze of lemon juice
freshly ground black pepper
Bring a big pot of water to a boil and add the pasta; cook until al dente, adding the peas for the last 4 minutes of cooking time. Before you drain it, scoop out some of the water with a measuring cup.
Drain the pasta and peas and put it back in the pan – add a knob of butter, a squeeze of lemon and lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and enough of the pasta water to make a saucy consistency. Serves 3-4.
September 23 2010 | pasta and vegetarian | 14 Comments »
Swerve is out! That means I can officially share the recipe everyone was drooling over last week. And in fact I did make it again tonight, having come home to not much in the fridge but cheese left over from this recipe, and milk that I threw in the freezer to use in baking and stuff like this. I used frozen spinach, and it did the trick. I also made it with brown rice pasta this time, in a tentative move away from consuming so much wheat. I know, baby steps.
Also: I have news!
No, it’s not a bun in the oven. But – it’s a boy! I get to host – yes, me – one ANTHONY BOURDAIN when he comes to Calgary in January. Maybe you’ve heard of him? My stomach is already doing flip-flops over not only getting to meet him, but INTRODUCE him. Do you think that counts as an ab workout? Maybe I’ll have abs of steel by January?
Here are the specifics: he’ll be giving a Kitchen Confidential lecture on Tuesday, January 12th at the Jack Singer Concert Hall in the Epcore Centre for Performing Arts. Doors open at 7; the talk will start at 8. Afterward I believe there will be a reception (to which you can buy tickets, I think?) with Janice Beaton Fine Cheese and wine from Willow Park Wines & Spirits. I’ll keep you posted as I learn more about it myself.
And yes, tickets are on sale now – $35 to $100 – you can buy them at the Epcor Centre Box Office, online or by calling (403) 294-9494.
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November 13 2009 | pasta | 49 Comments »
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We’ve been in getting-outta-Dodge mode for the past few days. Sadly, the car hasn’t – it’s in the shop with a pooched clutch. And so while we pine by the phone for the (completely awesome) mechanics to call and let us know we’re free to go get the H. out of this snow, I’ve been diligently plowing through the perishables in the fridge. There were lots of bits of cheese, and this not eating wheat thing combined with neverending snow has been causing me to Jones for starchy things big time. Like a big ol’ pot of baked mac & cheese.
